In the barbershop Only for VIP Men the staff is mostly new. In this place located in a central point of San José, the Costa Rican capital, and which has welcomed Nicaraguans seeking employment, workers have begun to emigrate one by one. His destination: the United States.
Jason is one of them. He says that he prefers not to identify himself by his full name because he continues to travel and fears being denied entry to his final destination.
During the last two years, this young man assures that he went through various difficulties in Costa Rica during the COVID-19 pandemic, but after that he says that economic inflation made life even more expensive in this Central American country.
Like Jeison, a little more than half of hairdressers have left their jobs in pursuit of what they call the “American dream.”
“About 50% of the hairdressers have left, or a little more, hence all the ones here are new. I am the oldest to work here, the rest are new and are planning to go to the US”, she assures the voice of americaJordan Chéves, who has been living in Costa Rica for 13 years and working in the barbershop.
“If I was given the opportunity to leave, I would go, but there is uncertainty, better not, very dangerous,” he adds.
Iván Vargas Umaña, 34, is also a Nicaraguan with more time in the barbershop. When asked the reason why he believes that his former colleagues left their jobs, he says that it is due to the high cost of living.
“The cost of living has been increasing and the salary is a bit low, it is not enough for the basic basket,” he says.
Inflation in Costa Rica reached 11.5% in July of this year, compared to the same month of 2021, according to the local newspaper The nation. Similarly, the same newspaper ensures that the cost of the basket increased by 22.5% in the same period.
And that could be one reason why Nicaraguans exiled in Costa Rica since 2018 are declining their refugee claim to enter the United States irregularly through the southern border.
During fiscal year 2022, the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded a record 2.7 million migrant apprehensions, 164,600 of these Nicaraguans.
Nicas give up refuge in Costa Rica
According to data from Migration and Immigration of Costa Rica, a country that has historically welcomed Nicaraguans, from January to August, a total of 301 people of that nationality rejected refugee applications.
However, the analyst and economist Daniel Suchar says that the figure may be higher because there is a high percentage that do not report it to the corresponding authorities.
“The Nicaraguan who is feeling that he is drowning, that he does not have a job and that, obviously, there is a kind of policy that does not allow him to develop, he definitely has to be careful to look for a new alternative in which the United States policy also It includes a new citizenship. It is no longer looking for Costa Rica as the favorite destination, but rather looking to go north,” says Suchar.
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