President Biden will host President Rodrigo Chaves of Costa Rica at the White House on Tuesday as their international locations strive to rein in a surge of migration in the Western Hemisphere.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Chaves, who was elected final yr, can even talk about financial ties and job creation, administration officers mentioned. They spoke on the situation of anonymity to preview the assembly.
The Biden administration’s plan to stem unlawful migration in the United States includes cracking down on asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border whereas working with Central American nations, like Costa Rica, to develop methods for migrants to apply for defense nearer to their house international locations.
Costa Rica just lately agreed to construct two facilities the place migrants may be processed for such authorized protections with out crossing the border. About 38,000 migrants from Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala have registered for authorized safety by way of the program. More than 2,000 of these candidates have been referred to the U.S. refugee program.
Mr. Chaves is hoping the websites will relieve stress on his nation’s asylum system as effectively. Costa Rica, a well-liked vacationer vacation spot, has struggled to deal with the quantity of migrants fleeing violence in Nicaragua and Venezuela.
More than 270,000 migrants had been in Costa Rica searching for safety by the finish of 2022, in accordance to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. As the nation struggled with the surge, Mr. Chaves enacted varied restrictions on the nation’s asylum system, together with a 30-day time restrict for migrants to apply for asylum in addition to stringent guidelines for issuing work permits.
The quantity of unlawful crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border elevated in July after a pointy drop the earlier month. The greater than 99,500 crossings in June was a 42 % drop from May, which the Biden administration attributed to a brand new asylum rule that set a better bar for a migrant to be eligible to apply for asylum in the United States. Crossings, nevertheless, elevated to greater than 132,000 in July.
The White House considers Costa Rica one of the strongest democracies in a area that has slipped towards authoritarianism lately. Mr. Chaves, who promised to upend the Latin American political institution and large enterprise, attended Mr. Biden’s Summit of the Americas, which was snubbed by different key nations in the area, together with Mexico. Mr. Biden additionally hosted a summit for democracy in March with leaders from the Netherlands, South Korea and Zambia.
But Mr. Chaves has additionally initiated assaults towards journalists investigating accusations of sexual harassment and monetary misconduct, utilizing govt powers to limit their shops of income. During his marketing campaign final yr, he additionally tried to decrease a World Bank investigation into sexual harassment allegations towards him.
