Harvest Season A Boom For Illegal Workers
Unemployment, poor salaries and hunger force many Nicaraguans to look south for better times, as the coffee harvest season in Costa Rica begins.

By land, principally in the areas of Boca San Carlos on the northern border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, is the main entry point for thousands of Nicaraguans who enter Costa Rican territory illegally looking for work. Work that is hard to come by in their homeland.

Risking detention and deportation, Nicaraguans see Costa Rica as the promised land. Here, there is work picking coffee, planting beans, harvesting pineapples, domestic work in homer, as labourers on construction sites and any other work that is available.

The Fuerza Pública (police) in the northern border began to detect an increase of illegals in the area of Boca San Carlos, especially in the small community of Pital San Carlos, which is located on the border of the river San Juan. In some cases, entire families take the risk in look for work.

In comparison to Costa Rica, salaries in Nicaragua are much lower.

A industrial factory worker in Managua (the capital) for example can earn 6 córdobas or ¢175 colones (us$0.34) per hour. In the outlying areas the salaries are even lower. A typical monthly salary for a domestic worker is us$60 a month, a teacher us$118, a professor us$130, an industrial engineer us$175 and a medical doctor as much as us$400. In Costa Rica, the salaries are on average three times that.

Illegals have made their way into Costa Rican territory by way of Méjico de Upala, Tablillas, Isla Chica de Los Chiles and Pocosol de San Carlos. However, today, Boca San Carlos is the favourite because in that small community there are only two police officers and neither of the two have a horse available to follow illegals into the mountains and valleys, as they make their way further south to major centres, many with their final destination of San José.

Unlike the past, illegals have to travel more to make it to their destination, but their chances of being undetected are much better as they take advantage of the vulnerability of the Costa Rican police force in being unable to pursue and detain them.

One of the main problems the Costa Rican police face is their inability to enter Nicaraguan territory. The San Juan river which separates the two countries is clearly in Nicaraguan territory and Costa Rican police are prohibited from patrolling the river and its banks.

Illegals make their way along the river on boats and setting foot on its banks and then on foot making way into Costa Rica. Costa Rican police cannot act until the illegals enter into their territory and by that time it is too late.

The patrol of the San Juan river is a source of dispute between the two countries, as Nicaragua has clearly maintained firm that Costa Rican police patrol the river, while Costa Rican maintains it can under a century old agreement. The dispute is now before the international court at the Hague.

Check points along the major routes into Costa Rican territory detect a small number of illegals, but pay offs are normal and the actual number of illegals detained and deported is small.

New immigration laws that came into force on August 12 of this year make it illegal for anyone helping or abetting an illegal, known as "coyotaje". Also, the new law place large fines on employers or hotels who give shelter to illegals.

However, the enforcement of the law is not practical as the immigration service does not have the financial resources to enforce the regulations.