Costa Rica to stop issuing transit visas for Cuban migrants

Costa Rica’s immigration crisis began on Nov 15 when Nicaragua closed its border to migrants from the Caribbean island and deployed police and army soliders to turnback some 800 people who had tried to advance through its territory. (Photo courtesy of the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry)

December 21st, 2015 (EFE) Costa Rica’s government said it would stop issuing transit visas to Cubans after failing to reach an agreement with its neighbors to allow these migrants to continue on through Central America toward the United States.

“We can’t keep receiving migrants indefinitely … Please don’t come to Costa Rica. We don’t want to deport you. Don’t come because you can’t go through,” Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis said Friday at a press conference.

The 5,989 Cubans who have already received transit visas will not be affected by the policy shift, while 2,053 others who are now at the country’s border with Panama will be the last to be permitted legal entry to Costa Rica, the head of Costa Rica’s immigration office, Kattia Rodriguez, said.

Costa Rica’s immigration crisis began on Nov. 15 when Nicaragua – a close ally of Cuba – closed its border to migrants from the Caribbean island and deployed police and army soldiers to turn back some 800 people who had tried to advance through that nation’s territory illegally.

Costa Rica’s decision to suspend the transit visas came after Solis left the Central American Integration System, or SICA, summit in El Salvador on Friday before its conclusion, saying later that he did so after failing to receive support in resolving the Cuban migrant crisis from Guatemala, Belize and Nicaragua.

Those three countries thus far have not allowed U.S.-bound migrants to pass through their territories.

He also said Costa Rica was suspending its political participation in SICA, although it will still cooperate on economic aspects.

Most of the Cubans stranded in Central America made their way north from Ecuador, which – until Dec. 1 – did not require visas for visitors from Cuba.

The head of Panama’s immigration service said early this month that this year’s restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba after a rupture of more than 50 years has increased emigration from the island amid fears that Washington will end the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which offers an expedited path to legal residence for any Cuban who reaches U.S. soil.

The flow of Cubans to Panama has quadrupled from around 5,000 in 2014 to 21,000 this year, Javier Carrillo told Channel 13 television on Dec. 2.