Las Américas International Airport — Local services in La Hispaniola

M experience at this airport was absolutely horrific & traumatic, especially being that I am pregnant. I’ve tried very hard not to instigate what the media is saying in regards to how Dominican Republic treats the American people, but this is not my first incident being mistreated in this country. An easy observation can be made of how many Dominicans treat their own people versus how they treat the tourists who fund the majority of their country.

Let’s start with the fact that my flight to Puerto Rico was delayed 6 times in one day & canceled 10 minutes before we were supposed to board at 12am. None of the workers had explanations and don’t even look you in the face when talking. One very rude lady said ‘I don’t know what to tell you. Your flight is tomorrow at 11am’. Therefore, after waiting 6 hours for my scheduled flight, I was expected to wait another 11. After fighting for the issue to be resolved as I deserved, I was accomodated in a hotel room at 1:30am in which I barely slept. The next morning I arrive to the airport 2 hours prior to boarding time. When it comes time to board, security would not let me through the first check point because my boarding pass had yesterday’s date (obviously because it was supposed to leave yesterday & I wasn’t provided a new one when I went to check in the next day as they told me I didn’t need it) & apparently the team doesn’t communicate with each other in regards to canceled & rescheduled flights which left him uninformed & delayed me until he spoke with his colleague. By the time I get to the 2nd checkpoint, now security wants to inspect my overhead which had about 20 decks of cards (I am a tarot reader). They went through every single deck despite me pleading that my flight was going to leave. 3rd checkpoint is immigration - I am legally married to a Dominican so therefore I extended my stay for 2 months & provided them my marriage certificate. After being told the night before that I was going to be excused from paying an extended stay fee, now I have to pay & the issue is my banks are American & placed holds on my cards preventing me from paying. 10 minutes trying to explain how i’ve been waiting 18 hours for this flight, that i’m pregnant, & providing the name of the worker who told me I didn’t even have to pay - the supervisor & every other immigration worker spoke to me so poorly as if they had not an ounce of sympathy & harshly told me ‘I don’t know what to tell you, tell your husband transfer the money or something” & proceeded to ignore me. Only after having a mental & emotional breakdown because of these terrible people, which left me having uterine pains as I write this, I was able to unblock one bank account, pay the damn $50, & go. But before I go, the supervisor tells me arrogantly & in an evil happy way “I think your plane left” & sure enough I missed my flight that I arrived on time for but was delayed because of the worst team in the world. Now I have to wait another 3 hours making it a total of a 21 hour wait just for a 40 minute ride to Puerto Rico.

I am disgusted, disappointed, traumatized, & in physical pain as a pregnant woman all because of the uneducated, rude, no respect for human life people who work at this airport.

I am looking further into this matter to see what legal action can be taken against these...

I need to express the disappointing and alert every organization about the abuses taking place by the immigration officials in the Santo Domingo-Dominican Republic airport. I suffered personally the mistreatment and witnessed it towards others. On Nov 19, I was traveling with my grandmother, 82 yrs old, and my mother, 62 years old. My grandmother is diabetic and had a stroke about 17 months ago, so she is in a wheelchair requiring help. The immigration personnel detained my grandmother as her Venezuelan passport expired in August 2020. Everyone knows the big problem Venezuelans face having two governments and finding themselves trapped in foreign countries because of COVID-19 with documents issues. There are many countries that accept expired Venezuelan passports, but Dominican Republic, even when it is one of the few hubs to go in and out of Venezuela, does not.

I understand the Dominican position, poor negotiation when enabled the flights and lack of common sense at every level of individuals who authorized these flights from/to Venezuela and take custody of travelers like my grandmother. What really showed the lack of respect for humans was the way my grandmother was detained and treated. We stayed with my grandmother in the immigration office, but the officers did not allow us to buy food or water and we could not even score my grandmother onto her next flight. My grandmother was taken from us like a murderer who was being guarded as a high profile criminal in the facility. I need everyone to think about it, we came on a flight from Miami where there was no food offered, arrived in Santo Domingo and my grandmother was traveling to Venezuela departing 16 hours later in a flight which did not offered any food either! The airport has restaurants and many immigration officers and security to ensure detained individuals can buy their food and water.

I have to recognize the efforts of one officer who identified himself by the name of “Wilkins” who allowed my grandmother to sleep in one of the bunkbeds allocated for the immigration officers. Unfortunately Officer Wilkins shift changed happened around 6 am and so the compassion.

The tone of the officers, the way the threatened others, the lack of respect and the poor airport structure makes me never want to come back to this island. I hope reporters, human rights organizations and other agencies take note, start investigations, training and estructural modifications before more and higher types of crimes...

By far the worst airport on the planet. Can not possibly be CDC approved. Security and most employees had no mask on especially on 4/10/21. The immigration line was congested and NO social distance at all (photo attached). Only 3 lines open for over 300 ppl. It was so crowded, security was calling passengers by name bc they were going to miss their flight. Need more proof, you can reach out to Jetblue passengers Flights after 6pm on 4/10 as we are all on the line for over an hour and 30 mins. We are next in line, the security guard Mr. RAMIREZ decides to bring 3 passengers from the end of the line to skip the entire line and put them next. At this point everyone went crazy and cursing and flipping out. Mr. RAMIREZ response was he has a health condition. The gentleman was walking fine and i believe their concern like everyone else was that they were going to miss their flight. Mr. RAMIREZ and my boyfriend had an altercation bc of Mr RAMIREZ actions and being inconsiderate to all the other passengers by having this passenger skip the line. Which i have a video showing the passenger was walking fine. With all the aggravation and waiting with no air ventilation, Mr RAMIREZ and his female partner took my boyfriend passport and said disrespectful to them, when he said this is BS they need to make the line like everyone else. NEED WITNESSES. I have a whole airline jwtbluw flight 1310 as proof. Then, Mr. RAMIREZ harassed my boyfriend telling him let's go to the back room and handle this like men for trying to embarrass me in front of my ppl. I explained to both Mr RAMIREZ and his female partner, I am in the middle yelling what they are doing is completely wrong. Mr. RAMIREZ was ready to fight.he took off his name tag and I asked him to let me take a pic of it. He denied as well as his partner. He is over 6ft tall, dark skin with salt pepper hair over 300lbs and wears glasses. I am in the middle telling Mr RAMIREZ to please let us go as I am pregnant and I want to go back to the states and never come back to this country. Mr RAMIREZ behavior is unacceptable and the last thing he said before letting us go was that my boyfriend is lucky he needs his job or if not he wouldve been dragging my boyfriends body across this Area. Another security guard came and took us to the front of the line so we can pass immigration. There has to be cameras in this area to show what is happening. Mr RAMIREZ needs to be FIRED. beyond...