Hungry and out in the open, dozens of Nicaraguans are spending the night while waiting in long lines outside Migration and Immigration in San José, Costa Rica, to obtain one of the 50 slots that office grants a day to request refuge.
Byro Rizo, 26, one of the Nicaraguans in line, says he arrived in Costa Rica eight days ago fleeing the political persecution he was a victim of in northern Nicaragua, where he lived with his wife.
“I’m looking for shelter. Now they say that the appointment is personal, before they said that one did it online,” lamented Rizo, and asked the Costa Rican government to speed up the process.
“Due to the situation of [Nicaragua] is that one does this, one seeks to live in peace and that is the goal we have. You wouldn’t want to go through all this,” he said.
The Migration and Aliens Office in San José, the only one in the capital, opens at 8:00 am Monday through Friday to serve the public. However, given the high number of refugee applicants, many arrive up to three days earlier and sleep on the sidewalk to secure a place.
The Costa Rican government hardened its immigration measures at the end of November of last year. President Rodrigo Chaves alleged that many who arrived in the country were “economic migrants” seeking to take advantage of the “generosity” of being refugees.
Among the measures announced by Chaves is that people who enter Costa Rica must request refuge in person within a period of no more than one month after entering the country.
Jeison Díaz Mora, originally from the island of Ometepe, in southern Nicaragua, has been in Costa Rica irregularly for more than four years and is one of those who lines up outside Migration and Immigration to see if he can improve his immigration status. and get a work permit.
Díaz Mora indicates that he prefers to endure the cold and sleep on the floor than return to his country of origin. “There the government is very difficult, even walking in the streets is dangerous. That is why we prefer to stay up all night here to see if they give us shelter and a job application, ”he said.
Tico government says that lines are unnecessary
The Costa Rican authorities assure that it is not necessary for people to arrive even three days earlier at the Migration and Aliens headquarters, since they put their security at risk, Esther Núñez, coordinator of the Migration and Refugee Unit told La Voz de América. foreigner
“People should not come days before to line up. The problem is that they have taken the habit, although we have indicated that it is not necessary,” said Núñez.
When asked about the limitation of quotas, Núñez indicated that apart from the 50 people who attend per day with the applications, there are also other people interviewed who saturate the Migration system.
The process involves “a significant workload,” Núñez said. “A day we can work 1,000 people, nothing more, at the moment we don’t have the capacity,” she said.
Since 2018, when the protests against President Daniel Ortega arose, more than 200,000 Nicaraguans fled the country, a good part to neighboring Costa Rica.
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