The Secretary of the Interior and Police, J. Antonio Hungría, asked Brother Brandt to submit a letter stating the position of the Witnesses on military service, flag salute, and the paying of taxes. He wrote a letter using information from the book “Let God Be True.” Nevertheless, on June 21, 1950, Secretary Hungría issued a decree that banned the activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Dominican Republic. Brother Brandt was summoned to Hungría’s office to hear the decree personally. Brother Brandt asked if the missionaries had to leave the country. Hungría assured him that they could stay as long as they obeyed the law and did not talk to others about their religion.a

On September 15, 1950, in a communication to the President of the Republic, Secretary Hungría wrote: “Mr. Lee Roy Brandt and other directors from the group Jehovah’s Witnesses have been repeatedly called into this office and admonished to cease all propaganda regarding this society, which was legally dissolved in this Republic​—an order which they apparently are not following. Daily, we receive reports from different parts of the country that they are continuing secretly with their propaganda, mocking government dispositions.” The letter concluded by recommending the deportation of the “principal foreign directors” of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Others obtained secular work so that they could stay in the country. For example, Brother Brandt worked for the electric company, and others worked as English teachers.