You are correct. At the end of the day, the DR process is not that bad.
It's worse then bad. It's horrendous. It's corrupt. It's disfunctional. And it's bizarre. On top of this, they change the rules midstream after they tell you, "It is Ok to cross the stream now!"
Wrong!
I'm lucky that i do not have to go through the process, but i'm watching my girlfriend go through it, and it's insane. Insane!
The entire system is insane...all the way from the driver's license test, to the Temporary Residency, to the Permanant Residency, and then Citizenship.
They tell her to get this and that stamp from the Russian Embassy in Moscow. And then when she finally gets the neccassary stamps or "Apostates", they say, "Oh, we're sorry, the stamp is only good for 30 or 60-days (i forget which), and it's now been 3-days past the limit. You must start over!"
Wait! What? WTF!? Start over?
And then they will say things like this:"Oh, we're sorry, there has been a rule change since you began your process."
She has her permanant residency, and has had it for a long time...this is not about that. This is about her trying to get her Dominican Citizenship.
It's a screwed up system from start to finish. And even the people in the office are confused which rule to follow. It depends on the position of the moon, the tide, the WhatApp message on their phone, their mood, and what fried foods they had that day.
It's a Catch-22 where everyone is arguing (in the office!) about which rule applies to which situation.
Personally, if i had to go through the process, I would never, ever do it. Ever! As in Never ever! Not for one million dollars!
Everytime she goes to SD, and stands in line all day, they ask her for a new stamp that they forgot to tell her about last week when she was there for the 3rd time in one month. She turns around and drives back 5-hours, and then starts sending papers by Fed-Ex to Moscow all over again to get another fuK%$&ng stamp that they keep forgeting to tell her about.
The entire process is straight out of the movie Brazil, by Terry Gilliam. No, I lie! It's 10x worse then the movie.
[video=youtube;dht_3NziwSw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dht_3NziwSw[/video]