The Center for Information and Health Advisory Services (CISAS), based in Costa Rica, presented this Monday, December 12, an analysis of the impact of Rodrigo Chaves’ presidential decrees to the detriment of refugee applicants.
The organization’s concern comes after the Costa Rican president, Rodrigo Chaves, announced on November 16 that his country is “taking measures” to prevent economic migrants from continuing to use the political refugee regime to get to work and settle. in the Central American nation.
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After these statements, the director of CISAS, Ana Quirós, expressed that it is of great concern that the Costa Rican president referred “with a series of prejudices” to the situation of migrants.
For the human rights defender, Chaves referred in a “very bad way” to Costa Rica’s urgency for the international community to help Costa Rica regarding migration issues.
“On November 30 – Rodrigo Chaves – signed a couple of presidential decrees related to criteria and conditions to grant refuge to people who flee their countries for political reasons,” Quirós recalled.
He emphasized that now refugee applicants will not have a work permit immediately, but that it will require other requirements, in addition to the fact that migrants will not be able to leave the country while they are refugee applicants, or else they will lose the possibility of being admitted.
He also pointed out that “what filled me with a lot of rage is that the president of —Rodrigo Chaves— makes a series of statements or affirmations, practically saying that those who are coming are practically a bunch of liars and that they are not fleeing, but are coming to to work”.
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“Obviously they come to work because they are not going to live off the air and I hope they get a job, but that was not the motivation —of the refugees— to leave Nicaragua, because those of us who have left know that we did not do it of our own free will, we did it forced. because of the situation,” he added.
Quirós, who has dual nationality (Costa Rican and Nicaraguan) stressed that Rodrigo Chaves’s statements have only promoted xenophobia, “raise more prejudices and create more difficulties for people who were already in precarious conditions.”
For her part, the lawyer, expert in international law, Marcia Aguiluz, who participated in the forum, explained that it is important to guarantee and protect the rights of migrants.
“According to the Permanent Commission on Human Rights, human mobility requires comprehensive and coordinated responses (…) It is understandable that the Costa Rican government wants to call the attention of the international community because there is a collective responsibility, but signatures count and these speeches incendiary and stigmatizing have their consequences,” he said.
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The speakers stressed that the need to continue echoing this issue that puts the security and stability of migrants at risk who now have to submit to new laws to be able to continue in the country, such as the obligation to contribute to the social security to be able to have a work permit, such as restrictions on leaving the country.
They also detailed the importance of resorting to an appeal for protection or unconstitutionality of decrees against refugee applicants, as they are considered arbitrary.
