16. The petitioners maintain that the offices in charge of processing birth registrations refused to register the girls, saying that they had orders not to register or issue birth certificates to children of Haitian descent. In this regard, the petitioners claim that the official in charge of the Civil Registry pointed out that both the first and last names of the girls were foreign and that they couldn’t be registered because their parents were Haitian and thus they also were Haitian. This same official said that when the girls were born, their parents were in the country illegally and thus the girls had no right to Dominican citizenship. 17. The petitioners claim to have exhausted domestic remedies. The respective mothers went to the Civil Administration Office (Oficialía Civil) in Sabana Grande de Boyá to request belated declarations of birth. When the official there refused to issue them, the plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Procurator of the Monte Plata District, who also rejected their applications. This was the final recourse available for obtaining the belated declarations of birth. B. POSITION OF THE STATE 18. The State holds that domestic remedies were not exhausted in the case under consideration. It adds that there was no refusal to register the girls and that they were told to redirect their efforts to comply with the provisions of the Central Electoral Board (Junta Central Electoral, hereinafter JCE), which is competent body for belated declarations. The State added that the JCE has remained open to the petitioners complying with legal requirements at any stage of the proceedings and that the order issued by the Procurator of the Monte Plata District should not be considered final and irreversible. 19. The State also holds that the girls’ mothers must go before the courts of the land to comply with the requirement of exhausting domestic remedies. It maintains that an appeal to the Procurator, who is a representative of the Office of the Attorney General (Ministerio úublico) and not a judge with jurisdiction to rule over legal disputes, is insufficient. 20. The State counters the petitioners’ allegations of discrimination, maintaining that the JCE, under which public employees of the Civil Administration work, has never issued instructions that children of Haitian descent are not to be registered. 21. In response to the claim that the girls are in a situation of imminent danger, the State maintains that “Currently there is no possibility of the Dominican Republic repatriating any Haitian who is in the country on a legal basis (such as those who hold legal residence, refugee status, a work permit or a current visa), or who fulfills any of the conditions for tolerance of illegal immigrants (such as citizenship with prolonged presence in the country or family links with Dominican nationals).” 22. The State holds that in the case under consideration, the General Office on Migration (Dirección General de Migración) ordered the pertinent departments not to repatriate minors Dilcia Yean and Violeta Bosica, both of Haitian descent and allegedly born in the Dominican Republic, until their claims could be fully checked. The State also reports that the Department of Haitian Affairs was sent orders to issue a certificate allowing the minors to temporarily remain in the country on a fully legal basis while their status was being examined. IV. ANALYSIS OF ADMISSIBILITY AND COMPETENCE 23. As stipulated in Article 44 of the American Convention on Human Rights (ratione materiae), the Commission has prima facie competence to examine the petitioners’ complaint since the alleged acts concern the right to nationality enshrined in Article 20 of the Convention. The Commission has ratione loci competence since the alleged acts occurred in the jurisdiction of the Dominican Republic, which has been a State Party to the Convention since 7 September 1978. The Commission has ratione temporis competence since the alleged acts were carried out during a period in which the Dominican Republic was under obligation to respect and guarantee the rights enshrined in the Convention. 3