The Costa Rican government has agreed to accept 25 migrants per week deported from the United States as part of an agreement to assist with former President Donald Trump’s policy of deporting immigrants to “third countries.” The Central American nation joins a growing number of countries across Africa and the Americas that have signed contentious, often secretive agreements with the US to accept deportees from other nations. Critics argue that migrants who previously hoped to seek asylum in the US are left in a legal “black hole” in foreign countries where they don’t speak the language.
Countries that have agreed to receive third-party migrants include South Sudan, Honduras, Rwanda, Guyana, and several Caribbean islands like Dominica and St. Kitts and Nevis. Costa Rican Public Security Minister Mario Zamora Cordero stated in a video address on Thursday, “Costa Rica is prepared to see this flow of people.” The pact was signed on Monday during a visit from US special envoy Kristi Noem, who was recently named to oversee the so-called “Shield of the Americas.” Noem, who was fired earlier this month from her role as secretary of Homeland Security, has been travelling through Latin America, with recent stops in Guyana and Ecuador. She said on Monday, “We are very proud to have partners like President Rodrigo Chaves and Costa Rica, who are working to ensure that people who are in our country illegally have the opportunity to return to their countries of origin.”
The Costa Rican government has called the pact a “non-binding migration agreement” and said it allows the Trump administration to transfer foreign nationals – who are not Costa Rican citizens – to the Central American nation. Costa Rica also reserves the right to accept or reject proposed transfers. It stated that deportees will be processed under Costa Rica’s migration laws under a special migratory status and that the country will avoid returning people to countries where they might face the risk of persecution. However, such “third-country” transfers have been sharply criticized for putting vulnerable populations further at risk and, in some cases, sending them to dangerous nations or where they face peril.
Costa Rica has already faced controversy for its treatment of the 200 deportees from countries like Russia, China, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan it received last year. The deportees, almost half of whom were minors, had their passports seized and were locked up for months in a rural detention facility near the Panama border, an incident that fueled lawsuits and accusations of human rights abuses. The country’s supreme court ordered their release last June. Many deportees who said they were too scared to return to their home country were later given temporary permits to stay in Costa Rica. Panama, which locked up hundreds of deportees around the same time, came under similar criticism.
Zamora on Thursday made assurances that the new round of deportees would be held in better conditions. He added that the Costa Rican government would work with the US to return migrants to their countries and with the United Nations International Organization for Migration to house deportees. He didn’t immediately detail where they would be held or for how long. “This will ensure they remain in the best possible conditions while in Costa Rica and guarantee their safe return to their countries of origin,” Zamora said.
At least seven African nations have signed deals with the US to facilitate deportations of third-country nationals, which legal experts said are effectively a way to circumvent laws that forbid countries from sending people to places where their lives would be threatened. Many deportees received legal protection from US judges shielding them against being returned to their home countries, their lawyers said. According to a February report by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own.
Source: www.aljazeera.com