In June 2015, lines of Haitian migrants and others seeking to regularize their status extended around the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Interior and Police in Santo Domingo. Diario Libre reported that several hundred people were waiting near the building on the registration deadline and that officials intended to serve those who remained in line even after 7 p.m. Three men said they had arrived before dawn and left in the afternoon for three, four and five days without reaching their turn.
They were waiting for more than a single document. The process offered a chance to register under the National Regularization Plan, submit missing papers and establish a lawful status in the country. Another local report traced the line from Avenida México along Calle Francia to Avenida Leopoldo Navarro. Priority for pregnant women and adults carrying children made the ordinary sequence slower still.
The significance of the queue cannot be measured by hours alone. The deadline carried anxiety about possible deportation, while each office could receive only a limited number of applicants. A Reuters photograph dated 17 June 2015 also records people waiting outside the ministry to register. Administrative order had become a line in which legal identity and the possibility of remaining in one's home were at stake.