Costa Rica has announced it will accept 25 migrants deported from the United States per week as part of an agreement to assist with President Donald Trump’s policy of deporting immigrants to third countries.
Costa Rica’s government signed the pact during a visit from US special envoy Kristi Noem, who was recently named to oversee the so-called Shield of the Americas. Costa Rica’s government has called the pact a non-binding migration agreement.
The Central American nation joins a growing number of countries across Africa and the Americas that have signed contentious, often secretive agreements with the US to accept deportees from other countries.
Countries that have agreed to receive third-party migrants include South Sudan, Honduras, Rwanda, Guyana and several Caribbean islands like Dominica and St Kitts and Nevis.
In many cases, critics say migrants who previously hoped to seek asylum in the US are left in a legal black hole in foreign countries where they don’t speak the language.
