Thread: 1,000 Cubans aiming for US stuck in Costa Rica

Around 1,000 Cubans aiming for US stuck in Costa Rica

About 1,000 desperate Cubans on an exhausting odyssey through South and Central America to the United States are stuck in Costa Rica with many risking deportation, authorities and the migrants said Thursday.

Many of them are too broke to pay farther passage north, having exhausted their funds by flying from Cuba to Ecuador then traveling overland through Colombia, then paying bribes to go by small boast to Panama and then over the land border into Costa Rica.

More than 100 of them are staying in streets close to Costa Rica's migration office in the capital San Jose, and nearly 1,000 are stuck in a border town unable to pass through passport control because they don't have a visa.

America has a longstanding policy of accepting Cubans who set foot on its soil.

In an effort to get past the US Coast Guard, which would return them to Cuba if caught on water, many now try to enter via Central America and then Mexico -- the same route used by mainland Latino migrants.

But increased security along the southern US border and boosted vigilance in Mexico have made that passage more difficult.

Images by Costa Rican television news channel Telenoticias showed the Cubans in the southern Costa Rican border town of Paso Canoas demonstrating to ask they be permitted to continue their journey.

"We are chasing our dreams," read one placard held by a Cuban.

Another, Rosalis Taguada, told the channel that "we have risked our lives to make it to Costa Rica -- it's difficult for a mother to subject her daughter to this, but it is more difficult to remain in that country (Cuba)."

The head of Costa Rica's Migration Service, Kathya Rodriguez, told reporters that the Cubans already in San Jose could soon be taken north, to the border with Nicaragua, if their papers were in order.

But those on the southern border with Panama would be sent back to that country if they were deemed to have crossed over illegally.

"In that case, we will conduct the process directly with Panama because it's obvious these people entered from Panama," she said.

"I don't know what sort of migration processing Panama is doing" with the Cubans, she added.

This week, Costa Rican police busted a migrant-smuggling ring that worked to take unauthorized migrants, mainly Cubans, through the country to the Nicaraguan border.

http://www.globalpost.com/article/66...uck-costa-rica

Costa Rica agrees to issue visas to some 1,000 Cubans en route to U.S.

One group blocks Inter-American Highway

Two Cubans announce hunger strikes in San José

Nearly 12,200 undocumented Cubans arrived in Costa Rica in just the first nine months of this year

JOSÉ MELÉNDEZ
Special to el Nuevo herald

SAN JOSÉ, COSTA RICA The Costa Rican government has agreed to issue humanitarian visas to more than 1,000 undocumented Cubans detained in the Central American country, but will keep its borders closed to other Cuban migrants trying to move north toward the United States.

The government also emphasized Friday that it will try to deport to Panama any Cubans newly detained in Costa Rica without visas, as part of its decision — announced Wednesday — to reverse a long-standing policy of allowing the Cubans to continue moving north to neighboring Nicaragua.

The issue turned worse Friday morning when a protest by about 600 of the more than 1,000 Cubans detained in Paso Canoas, on the Costa Rican border with Panama, blocked the Inter-American highway, the region's main land transportation route, at least until late in the afternoon.

Two undocumented Cubans, Esdrey Roura and Mario José Pérez, meanwhile stripped down to their underwear and declared hunger strikes outside the main Migration Directorate office in San José to demand they be allowed to continue on their journey to the north.

“We will not dress and we will not eat again until we are turned over the U.S. authorities. That is our demand. We have been detained in this country for almost 15 days, for nothing. They say that this is a small country that has no regulations. We're not interested in the country or its regulations,” said Roura. “We are in transit and we have one goal, which is to reach the United States. Nothing less than that.”

Perez added: “We've had enough. They have been bouncing us this way and that way. We don't want to stay here. Our interest is reaching the United States, just that.”

Before Wednesday, Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico allowed Cubans without visas to enter their territory under a promise to seek refugee status, but then freed them and gave them several days to start the refugee paperwork — time enough to continue their journeys toward Mexico and the United States.

But after arresting more than a dozen Costa Rican members of a Cuban-smuggling ring on Tuesday, the Costa Rican government announced it would close its borders to arriving Cubans and return to Panama any migrants detained in their territory. Panama has refused to take them back.

The decision left more than 1,000 island citizens stranded in Paso Canoas – another 400 arrived since — and 200 to 300 in Peñas Blancas, on the northern border with Nicaragua. Authorities have said that the migrants on the northern border will be “deported” to Nicaragua after they finish some paperwork.

The Cuban migrants usually leave the island through Ecuador, which does not require them to obtain prior entry visas, then travel northward, most often with people smugglers through Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

The trip usually takes six to eight weeks and is paid for with money transfers along the way from relatives and friends in the United States.

Kattia Rodríguez, head of the Costa Rican Migration Directorate, has said that the current problems involve Cubans stranded when authorities arrested their smugglers, who charge from $7,500 to $15,000 to move them along the northern-bound pipeline.

Nearly 12,200 undocumented Cubans arrived in Costa Rica in just the first nine months of this year, compared to 5,114 in 2014 and 2,549 in 2013 — the year when the Cuban government lifted most of its tight controls on citizens who want to travel abroad.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...#storylink=cpy

On way to America: Cuban illegals paralyze Nicaragua-Costa Rica border