Costa Rica signs weekly deportation deal with US under Trump crackdown
The Chronify
Costa Rica has agreed to accept 25 migrants deported from the United States each week under a new “third country” arrangement with the Trump administration, expanding Washington’s effort to send noncitizen migrants to countries other than their own. Costa Rican officials said the agreement was signed this week during a visit by US envoy Kristi Noem and described it as a nonbinding migration pact.
Under the arrangement, Costa Rica will be able to accept or reject proposed transfers on a case by case basis, according to officials familiar with the policy. The people covered are foreign nationals who are not Costa Rican citizens, and they are expected to be processed under a special migratory status rather than ordinary immigration channels. Costa Rican authorities have also said they will avoid sending people back to places where they could face persecution.
The deal places Costa Rica among a widening group of countries that have entered similar agreements with Washington as part of Trump’s mass deportation drive. Other governments in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America have also come under pressure to receive deportees from third countries, a policy that has drawn criticism from legal experts and rights groups who say it leaves migrants in a state of uncertainty far from their homes and support networks.
Costa Rica has already faced scrutiny over its handling of earlier deportees sent from the United States. Rights groups documented that about 200 deportees from countries including Afghanistan, China, Russia, and Uzbekistan were held for months in a remote detention facility near the Panama border in 2025, with passports confiscated and legal access limited. Costa Rica’s Supreme Court later ordered their release, and some were granted temporary permits to stay because they feared returning home.
Public Security Minister Mario Zamora Cordero said the new deportees would be received under better conditions and that Costa Rica would work with the United States and the International Organization for Migration on housing and returns. He did not immediately provide full details on where the migrants would be held or how long they would remain in the country before onward transfer or return.
The agreement comes as Trump intensifies efforts to show results on migration ahead of the US election season, with deportations and regional enforcement partnerships becoming a central part of his immigration agenda. Noem’s recent tour of Latin America, including stops in Costa Rica, Guyana, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador, was tied to that wider push.
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