DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

The director general of the Migration Agency, Vice Admiral Luis Rafael Lee Ballester sent a formal clarification to Listin Diario with corrected information on residency permits issued in May 2024. Listin Diario had reported, citing data from the Migration website, that May 2024, an electoral month, was showing a abnormal spike in number of residencies granted.

Lee Ballester attributed the abnormally high number of residencies to a corrupted data file.

In a letter addressed to the newspaper’s director, Miguel Franjul, Lee Ballester explained that a report titled “May 2024: Migration Granted More Residencies Than in an Entire Year” relied on inaccurate information. The error originated from a compromised file uploaded to the government’s Open Data portal in June 2024.

The Migration Agency became aware of the error following the publication in Listin Diario.

As reported by the DGM, following an exhaustive internal audit of the agency’s database, the verified figures for...