The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) repatriated 41 former Dominican inmates to the country on Tuesday, 19 of them for drug trafficking, after serving sentences in North American prisons.
The group, consisting of 40 men and a woman, was brought through Las Américas airport in a commercial aircraft with registration SWQ3578 of the airline SWIFT AIR LLC, with flight number N529 AU, from the city of Alexandria, Louisiana, USA.
The returned persons were received in an operation set up by authorities of the Directorate-General for Migration, the Specialized Corps of Airport Security and Civil Aviation CESAC and the National Directorate of Drug Control DNCD and other agencies.
According to the records of the deportees, 19 of them served sentences for the sale and distribution of narcotics 14 others were imprisoned for violations of immigration laws.
The others were convicted of murder, robbery, bank fraud, kidnappings, possession of weapons, terrorist threats, armed robbery and other petty crimes.
Upon arrival at the airport, the Migration and Public Health authorities subjected them to Covid-19 detection tests and other medical examinations before boarding the buses that would take them to the headquarters of the Directorate General for Migration.
This year, 2021, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency has so far deported 385 nationals to the country after serving their sentences in that country.
According to statistics, in 2020 the US government deported 1,419 Dominicans to the Dominican Republic after serving convictions in prisons in several US states charged with various federal crimes.
The deportations of Dominicans who have committed crimes in the United States are through extradition agreements signed by the 1910 government of the Dominican Republic and the United States and rectified in 2016.