Costa Rica carried out its second mass aerial deportation of foreign nationals today, sending 26 people to Colombia and Ecuador in an operation coordinated by the Dirección General de Migración y ExtranjerÃa and the PolicÃa Profesional de Migración.
The Air Panama aircraft arrived at the San Jose Airport early this morning before the deportees were escorted from official vehicles to the plane by migration police. The flight left Costa Rica with Colombian and Ecuadorian nationals who, according to migration officials, either had committed crimes in Costa Rica or were in the country with irregular migratory status.
Authorities said 19 of the deportees had criminal profiles or had completed criminal processes in Costa Rica. The cases included offenses related to narcotics, cocaine distribution, drug sales, attempted homicide, aggravated resistance, domestic violence and robbery. The remaining deportees were Ecuadorian nationals who had been detected in irregular migratory status while moving through the south-north migration route toward the United States, according to migration authorities.
Omer Badilla, Costa Rica’s director general of Migration and vice minister of Governance and Police, said those who had been convicted had either completed their sentences in Costa Rica or were close to finishing them. Once released by judicial authorities, foreign nationals who must be removed from the country are transferred to migration police custody while deportation arrangements are completed.
Badilla said the group had been held in migration facilities while awaiting removal. He also said one of the people deported today had already been removed from Costa Rica in the past, a case authorities cited as an example of the difficulty of controlling re-entry across the country’s borders.
The operation was financed with support from the United States government under a cooperation arrangement. Badilla clarified that this was separate from the migration agreement signed in March, under which Costa Rica has received migrants deported from the United States.
According to Badilla, today’s operation was carried out under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that allows resources to be transferred to Costa Rica to help move people who are subject to deportation.
The flight’s first stop was MedellÃn, Colombia, where Colombian nationals were to be handed over to local authorities. The aircraft was then scheduled to continue to Ecuador with the remaining deportees, escorted by Costa Rican migration officers throughout the route, before making a refueling stop in Panama on its return to Costa Rica.
Migration authorities said they will now begin a new identification process focused on other foreign nationals in similar situations, with additional deportation flights expected to follow.
