United States Repatriated 80 Dominicans Today

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the repatriation on Tuesday of a group of 80 Dominicans who have served out sentences for various crimes, 36 of them for drug trafficking.

In a communication, the U.S. Embassy addressed to airport authorities and the Directorate General of Immigration, indicating that the eighty Dominican ex-convicts will be arriving in the country in the early hours of Tuesday afternoon.

Reports obtained by journalists covering the source in Las Americas say that seven federal agents will come accompanying the returnees, who are coming in a plane chartered by the Immigration and Customs Services.

In addition to the 36 who served sentences for drug trafficking, others from the 1980s were in jail for murder, rape, falsification of documents, state fraud, robbery and assault, and other minor cases.

The Creoles served their sentences in jails in New York City and Boston, particularly in Miami, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Texas, Los Angeles, California, Massachusetts, among other American towns.

It was reported that some of them served sentences of ten, twelve, and in some cases up to fifteen years in prison, especially those linked to drug trafficking, murder, and million-dollar fraud against American agencies.

The authorities in charge of receiving the returnees at AILA will set up a cordon on the airport terminal’s north ramp where the aircraft will be parked with the eighty Dominican ex-convicts and escort agents.

The criollos will be lowered one by one from the aircraft and will have to undergo a medical temperature check to determine if any of them could be affected by the coronavirus symptoms.

Once the medical check-up process is completed, the returnees will board two buses from the General Direction of Migration and be taken to the Reception and Refuge Center for prisoners and returnees that the institution has in Haina, San Cristóbal.

Immigration officials then interrogate the ex-convicts to determine if any of them have pending judicial matters in the country. Then they are booked and later handed over to their families.

This is the second group of Dominican ex-convicts that U.S. authorities have repatriated so far in January 2021. The first group consisted of 64 criollos, which brings the number of repatriated prisoners to l44.

Even though the returnees are taken to the Immigration Refugee Center, no agency in the country is in charge of following up on the ex-convicts to prevent them from committing acts against the law, as demanded by various institutions.