As of January 2, 2012, the immigration laws for visiting the DR have changed. When we visited the branch it was mentioned that some 800 + volunteers were serving in the DR, and that was just in English. The new law could possibly change that number dramatically. Here is some of the information that I was provided:
January 2, 2012:
- Tourists can enter the country on a tourist visa and will have 2 months permission to stay. After that, they can apply for 2 more months extension on their tourist visa, but they will need to go through a medical check, at that stage (will cost around $300) to get that extension. After those 4 months they should leave the country. You will not be able to just cross the border into Haiti to get the tourist visa again every 2 months as there will be a requirement that you must be entering from your country of origin to get another tourist visa. If you continue to do this they will be able to see this from your passport.
- If your application for provisional residency is started before January 2nd 2012, the provisional residency you will be given will last for 1 year and 5 months and then after that you can apply for permanent residency the following year. (It is not yet known if it will be sufficient for the application to consist of the results of the medical exam or if you must have already lodged your birth certificate, etc, for it to qualify). If your application for provisional residency is started after January 2nd 2012, the provisional residency you will be given will be a different type that will need to be renewed for 4 years before you are given permanent residency on the 5th year.
Other changes are starting in June 2012:
- If a person wants to stay longer than 4 months in the DR, they will need to firstly apply for a special 3-month temporary visa via the Dominican Embassy in their country, they would then travel to the DR with this permission and then start the process of applying for residency once they arrive to DR. If the person has already entered the country on a tourist visa, then decides they want to get residency, they would need to go back to their home country to apply for the 3-month temporary visa first, then come to DR and start the residency process.
As you can see there will be a considerable cost involved in order to serve more than 4 months. The cost of the provisional residency for the application is $940 per person. If a person had not started their application prior to Jan. 2, then they will also have to pay $500 per year, up to the 5th year in order to renew their provisional residency each year, until they can apply for permanent residency.
What does this mean? It means that there are a lot of "need greaters" serving in the country now that will have to come home to start their residency process. Many will not be in the financial circumstances to return. Which in turn means that overall there will be a big change in the number of need greaters serving there. If there was a lot of work to be done before Jan. 2, now there will be an even greater need.
Here is a website to an attorney (who is a JW) that assists the need greaters in getting residency: http://www.residencydr.com/.
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