Migracion Mystic Miserable Moraima Morass
Migracion Mystic Miserable Moraima Morass
My special regularization story continues with a trip to Migracion in Santo Domingo starting on Monday of this week by bus so that I could arrive early at Migracion. I returned Tuesday night about 9 PM after a day at Migracion and the JCE. We stayed at the Mystic Hotel where I had been before in Gazcue. (Advice- never eat at the nice looking restaurant just on the corner from that hotel. It is a nice looking place, but has the most tasteless food I ever ate in Santo Domingo. )
My wife and I arrived at Migracion about 8:15 AM on Tuesday. The woman out front gave us the wrong type of ticket number for my special regularization. What a surprise We were eventually called up to Window 7, a woman who's name is in the title of this post works at that window. Her reason for being is to make life harder for me. In fairness, she probably recalled my previous discussions with her when I asked about why I needed special regularization back last October and her insufficient and obnoxious responses caused me to suggest various ways she could fornicate with herself.
This time she attempted to make the process take as long as possible and she was quite good at her ends. She took my receipt from payment when I submitted my documents back last October and told us to wait for processing. After an hour or so, my wife asked if there was anything else, Maraima said no. Just wait. Then my wife asked to the very nice and friendly person who is at the information stand what was going on. She told us we needed a case number. That number could only be gotten on line by uploaded essentially the same documents that I already provided to Maraima back in October. Nowhere in any of the instructions for my special regularization was this case number mentioned. That nice woman at the INFO station used her cell phone to upload the copies I luckily had with me of those items needed and handed me a paper with the case number. We turned in that paper to Maraima. We then waited.
Feeling there was still a problem, and there was, we asked the kind woman again about what was happening and found out Maraima did not tell us we needed to pay for the regularization in order to get my photo taken and card generated. The process would go nowhere until I paid. I am sure this was deliberate on Maraima's part. So the kind woman at the info desk generated the bill for me. Of course the bill was wrong. It had the charge for the medical exam on it, which I had paid back in October when I actually had the medical exam. So we had a cashier revise the bill and then they added the expedite fee because time had flown and we were now approaching 2 PM. Paying that bill caused a man to allow me to enter the sacred back rooms where I had my photo taken around 2 PM. Around 2:30, no thanks to Maraima, I got my new residency card.
They told me it would be a temporary residency for 1 year and the next time I would get a 4 year permanent card. However this card was a Permanent Residency card good for 4 years. One significant good thing was getting a 4 year card. I had already been a "tourist " since last October. Probably one of the few tourists with othewise valid DR driver's license and weapons permits.
Looking at the time and the fact that the JCE likes to close at 3:30 PM , it looked like getting my cedula would be a challenge to do yesterday. There were no Taxis in front of Migracion. Not one. Luckily I was able to flag a taxi down within 5 minutes and we got to the JCE Extranjero Cedula office where it took me about 30 minutes in total to have my new 4 year Cedula which matched the dates on my new 4 year residency.
The incompetence and deceit at Migracion will remain with me long after my residency card expires.
For those who like to use lawyers: If I had a lawyer "do" my special regularization, at least another $1,500 US would have been added to the $1,600 US I spent in total doing it myself with little to no additional benefit to me. And I would have done virtually all of the same things that I just did over the past 6 months. There is no way a DR lawyer could have acquired my NY birth certificate from my hometown in upstate NY, even I had luck with me on getting that without a trip to the US. It was the most difficult part of the process.
(I got 2 copies of my birth certificate ready, the second one being for naturalization.). So my "special regularization" is complete. No thanks to the people in Migracion who are frequently clueless except for the kind woman at the INFO booth in Santo Domingo.
I have reviewed all of the information on The Ministry of the Interior and Police's web site for naturalization and decided that since I need three things from the US, that this is best started when I am in the US because the FBI report expires and I need to move quickly once I have it. Being in the US will facilitate getting an FBI report and other mailings for divorce and death certificates I can do more easily when in the US. That I will start some time before the end of this year.
Migracion Mystic Miserable Moraima Morass
My special regularization story continues with a trip to Migracion in Santo Domingo starting on Monday of this week by bus so that I could arrive early at Migracion. I returned Tuesday night about 9 PM after a day at Migracion and the JCE. We stayed at the Mystic Hotel where I had been before in Gazcue. (Advice- never eat at the nice looking restaurant just on the corner from that hotel. It is a nice looking place, but has the most tasteless food I ever ate in Santo Domingo. )
My wife and I arrived at Migracion about 8:15 AM on Tuesday. The woman out front gave us the wrong type of ticket number for my special regularization. What a surprise We were eventually called up to Window 7, a woman who's name is in the title of this post works at that window. Her reason for being is to make life harder for me. In fairness, she probably recalled my previous discussions with her when I asked about why I needed special regularization back last October and her insufficient and obnoxious responses caused me to suggest various ways she could fornicate with herself.
This time she attempted to make the process take as long as possible and she was quite good at her ends. She took my receipt from payment when I submitted my documents back last October and told us to wait for processing. After an hour or so, my wife asked if there was anything else, Maraima said no. Just wait. Then my wife asked to the very nice and friendly person who is at the information stand what was going on. She told us we needed a case number. That number could only be gotten on line by uploaded essentially the same documents that I already provided to Maraima back in October. Nowhere in any of the instructions for my special regularization was this case number mentioned. That nice woman at the INFO station used her cell phone to upload the copies I luckily had with me of those items needed and handed me a paper with the case number. We turned in that paper to Maraima. We then waited.
Feeling there was still a problem, and there was, we asked the kind woman again about what was happening and found out Maraima did not tell us we needed to pay for the regularization in order to get my photo taken and card generated. The process would go nowhere until I paid. I am sure this was deliberate on Maraima's part. So the kind woman at the info desk generated the bill for me. Of course the bill was wrong. It had the charge for the medical exam on it, which I had paid back in October when I actually had the medical exam. So we had a cashier revise the bill and then they added the expedite fee because time had flown and we were now approaching 2 PM. Paying that bill caused a man to allow me to enter the sacred back rooms where I had my photo taken around 2 PM. Around 2:30, no thanks to Maraima, I got my new residency card.
They told me it would be a temporary residency for 1 year and the next time I would get a 4 year permanent card. However this card was a Permanent Residency card good for 4 years. One significant good thing was getting a 4 year card. I had already been a "tourist " since last October. Probably one of the few tourists with othewise valid DR driver's license and weapons permits.
Looking at the time and the fact that the JCE likes to close at 3:30 PM , it looked like getting my cedula would be a challenge to do yesterday. There were no Taxis in front of Migracion. Not one. Luckily I was able to flag a taxi down within 5 minutes and we got to the JCE Extranjero Cedula office where it took me about 30 minutes in total to have my new 4 year Cedula which matched the dates on my new 4 year residency.
The incompetence and deceit at Migracion will remain with me long after my residency card expires.
For those who like to use lawyers: If I had a lawyer "do" my special regularization, at least another $1,500 US would have been added to the $1,600 US I spent in total doing it myself with little to no additional benefit to me. And I would have done virtually all of the same things that I just did over the past 6 months. There is no way a DR lawyer could have acquired my NY birth certificate from my hometown in upstate NY, even I had luck with me on getting that without a trip to the US. It was the most difficult part of the process.
(I got 2 copies of my birth certificate ready, the second one being for naturalization.). So my "special regularization" is complete. No thanks to the people in Migracion who are frequently clueless except for the kind woman at the INFO booth in Santo Domingo.
I have reviewed all of the information on The Ministry of the Interior and Police's web site for naturalization and decided that since I need three things from the US, that this is best started when I am in the US because the FBI report expires and I need to move quickly once I have it. Being in the US will facilitate getting an FBI report and other mailings for divorce and death certificates I can do more easily when in the US. That I will start some time before the end of this year.
