The Central American nation is the most recent to signal a ‘third-country’ deportation settlement as a part of Trump’s mass-deportation marketing campaign.
Revealed On 26 Mar 2026
Costa Rica has introduced it should settle for 25 migrants deported from america per week as a part of an settlement to help with President Donald Trump’s coverage of deporting immigrants to “third nations”.
The Central American nation joins a rising variety of nations throughout Africa and the Americas which have signed contentious, typically secretive agreements with the US to just accept deportees from different nations.
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In lots of instances, critics say migrants who beforehand hoped to hunt asylum within the US are left in a authorized “black gap” in overseas nations the place they don’t communicate the language.
Nations which have agreed to obtain third-party migrants embrace South Sudan, Honduras, Rwanda, Guyana and several other Caribbean islands like Dominica and St Kitts and Nevis.
“Costa Rica is ready to see this circulate of individuals,” mentioned Costa Rican Public Safety Minister Mario Zamora Cordero in a video assertion on Thursday.
Costa Rica’s authorities signed the pact on Monday throughout a go to from US particular envoy Kristi Noem, who was lately named to supervise the so-called “Protect of the Americas”.
Noem, who was fired earlier this month from her function as secretary of Homeland Safety, has been travelling by way of Latin America, with current stops in Guyana and Ecuador.
“We’re very proud to have companions like President [Rodrigo Chaves] and Costa Rica, who’re working to make sure that people who find themselves in our nation illegally have the chance to return to their nations of origin,” Noem mentioned on Monday.
Costa Rica’s authorities has known as the pact a “non-binding migration settlement”.
It additionally mentioned the deal permits the Trump administration to switch overseas nationals – who are usually not Costa Rican residents – to the Central American nation.
The Costa Rican authorities additionally reserves the appropriate to just accept or reject proposed transfers.
It mentioned the deportees shall be processed underneath Costa Rica’s migration legal guidelines underneath a particular migratory standing and that the nation will keep away from returning individuals to nations the place they could face the chance of persecution.
Such “third-country” transfers have been sharply criticised for placing weak populations additional in danger and, in some instances, sending them to harmful nations or the place they face danger.
Costa Rica has already confronted controversy for its therapy of the 200 deportees from nations like Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan it obtained final 12 months.
The deportees, virtually half of whom have been minors, had their passports seized and have been locked up for months in a rural detention facility close to the Panama border, an incident that fuelled lawsuits and accusations of human rights abuses. The nation’s supreme courtroom ordered their launch final June.
Many deportees who mentioned they have been too scared to return to their dwelling nation have been later given momentary permits to remain in Costa Rica. Panama, which locked up a whole bunch of deportees across the identical time, got here underneath related criticism.
Zamora on Thursday made assurances that the brand new spherical of deportees can be held in higher situations.
He added that the Costa Rican authorities would work with the US to return migrants to their nations and with the United Nations Worldwide Group for Migration to accommodate deportees. He didn’t instantly element the place they might be held or for a way lengthy.
“This can guarantee they continue to be in the very best situations whereas in Costa Rica and assure their protected return to their nations of origin,” Zamora mentioned.
At the least seven African nations have signed offers with the US to facilitate deportations of third-country nationals, which authorized specialists mentioned are successfully a option to circumvent legal guidelines that forbid nations from sending individuals to locations the place their lives can be threatened.
Many deportees obtained authorized safety from US judges shielding them in opposition to being returned to their dwelling nations, their legal professionals mentioned.
The Trump administration has spent at the very least $40m to deport about 300 migrants to nations aside from their very own, in response to a February report by the Democratic workers of the Senate International Relations Committee.
