David Domingo Dávila Guido has yet to find a piece of cardboard that might be lying on the sidewalk where more than fifty Nicaraguan migrants are huddled, huddled in groups like penguins braving the 17-degree heat this February night in San Jose, on the it falls – to worsen the thermal feeling – accompanied by cold gusts. Shaded by a yellowish light, the 31-year-old preferred to wrap himself in a gray blanket previously given to him by a humanitarian group. “The cold is harsh and I’ve been here two nights already. It’ll get worse at dawn, but I’m hoping to get a number today,” he says without much hope. Her face is enveloped by the steam coming out of the cups of hot coffee almost everyone is holding to their chests, like embers that soothe their hands.
The “number” to which Dávila Guido is referring is one of the fifty digits that officials at the Costa Rican capital’s refugee department give out to asylum seekers every morning since the Central American country’s president, Rodrigo Chaves, significantly changed the end of November 2022 the directive to apply for international protection in Costa Rica. One of the most visible consequences of the changes were these improvised outdoor migrant camps, since before the reform one could ask for refuge by phone or website.
The Chaves administration has now determined that protection can only be requested in person and within a limited window of 30 days after entering the territory. However, fifty daily quotas are meager for the thousands of Nicaraguans fleeing the political violence of the regimes of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, as well as the economic crisis the country has been going through since the 2018 social protests.
According to the Costa Rican Immigration Service, from 2018 to the November 30 announcement of the Chaves Reform, 222,056 refugee applications were received, of which 172,689 are still being processed. Although there are Cuban, Venezuelan and Haitian migrants among them, 90% are Nicaraguans. The immigration system has been overstepped and President Chaves argued that “the measures” are “to prevent our refugee regime from being abused by people who want to emigrate to Costa Rica and stay here to work”. According to the President, between 80% and 90% of applicants do not meet the requirements for this category of immigration.
Jorge Ramírez, a 31-year-old Nicaraguan who studied Systems Engineering in Managua before leaving the country. Carlos Herrera
The President also lamented the lack of financial support from the international community to deal with thousands of asylum seekers. “We don’t see support for the countries that are creating the phenomenon to some degree, like the United States, we don’t see support for the International Organization for Migration, we don’t see support for the United Nations or the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)” , he said.
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The other two measures that were controversial for organizations that defend and accompany migrants were, on the one hand, that work permits for refugee applicants are no longer granted quickly. You must resort to a different administrative procedure. And second, that applicants cannot leave Costa Rica. Previously, the obstacle was to travel to their country of origin, but now they cannot travel to third countries, affecting a large part of a highly politically displaced population, among which stand out opponents, human rights defenders and social leaders who participate in international forums and places, to denounce the Ortega-Murillo regime.
Costa Rican immigration authorities deployed their professional police on January 20 to prevent the formation of migrant camps, particularly to prevent minors from spending long days at the foot of this huge blue gate that covers the Refugee Unit, located in a Industrial area located on the outskirts of downtown San Jose. Although the number of those staying at the facility has fallen, people plant pieces of cardboard that make mattresses, blankets and coffee mugs at night in hopes of getting one quickly, guards at factories near the camp said Shelter opposite EL PAÍS Quote, those first nights of 2023, decided by a cold front that hits Costa Rica, no longer endure outdoors and without food.
“They invent a bunch of crime for you”
David Domingo Dávila Guido hails from El Rama, a community on the southern Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, where it is stiflingly hot and humid ten months of the year. That’s why this cold josefino is so difficult for this Nicaraguan, who doesn’t hide that one of his motivations for irregularly crossing the permeable limit is to achieve economic stability. “A small job to get ahead,” he says. He is a deeply religious man, although he does not wear a crucifix to betray his Catholicism. He left Nicaragua as lightly as possible two weeks ago. In El Rama, he was the choir director of the Nuestra Señora de Fátima Church, but in recent months he began to feel “unsafe”.
“There [en Nicaragua] Many things are forbidden, such as the priest preaching against the government… Priests and a bishop are in prison. They speak because many injustices have been committed, but no one can say anything because they throw you in prison; You invent a series of crimes you never committed. That’s the problem with the government,” explains Dávila Guido.
Refugee applicants try to sleep in front of the Costa Rican refugee center this Thursday. Carlos Herrera
The migrant says he felt the pressure when some nuns who had been helping the choir were “sent away” from Nicaragua. “It’s like, every Sunday, they, the police officers, came to church to see what was said in the sermon… and they also recommended that we not sing some songs.” At the time, he decided, for two main logistical reasons Reasons to come to Costa Rica: “It’s the neighboring country” and because the way to the United States is more expensive and dangerous… “In Mexico they kill us,” says Jorge Ramírez, a 31-year-old Nicaraguan, who picked up the conversation a few meters remotely overhears. The young man studied systems engineering at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN-Managua), but claims that Sandinista pressures to get involved in party activities and the need to support his six-year-old son drove him to Costa Rica.
In fact, Ramírez crossed the border into Costa Rica with his son. His life shattered in 2020 when his wife died of a sudden heart attack. So the risk of coming to the US with the little one was never an option for him. The first wave of exiles in 2018 went to Costa Rica, but after the pandemic hit Costa Rica’s economy and high unemployment rates, the tide moved north. In 2022 alone, 4% of the Nicaraguan population, more than 300,000 people, fled mostly to the United States. Aside from the dangers of the crossing, the closure of the border imposed by Joe Biden in exchange for “humanitarian probation” has left thousands in disarray. And Costa Rica remains the closest country, “the neighbor,” despite the high cost and lack of jobs.
“I have to take care of my son and my mother. While I get the appointment at the shelter, the child is being cared for by a brother who came before… I’ve been here for a week. You know we come with limited resources and it would be nice to have a number today. If not, it doesn’t matter if it’s cold as long as my son has a brighter future and achieves his goals,” says Ramírez. The young man leans back on the cardboard lying on the cold sidewalk. He puts on his headphones and throws the blanket over his face to await dawn, with a contingent allowing him to enter at dawn through the Refuge Unit’s huge blue gate, which at that hour appears impassable.
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