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The inaugural group of migrants deported from the United States to third countries has reached Costa Rica.
This initial contingent, consisting of approximately 25 individuals from nations such as Albania, Cameroon, China, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, and Morocco, landed in San Jose, the capital of the Central American nation, on Saturday.
In a statement, Costa Rica’s General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners outlined that upon arrival, the migrants will be offered primary care services by the Professional Migration Police, in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
This group marks the first arrival under an agreement established in March between the United States and Costa Rica. As part of this agreement, Costa Rica has committed to accepting up to 25 deportees weekly, with the United States providing financial assistance to support the initiative.
Under the deal, Costa Rica will receive up to 25 deportees a week, while the US will provide the country with financial support in return.
The IOM will also offer food and accommodation to the migrants for the first seven days of their stay.
Such third-country deportations allow the US to remove migrants from America whose countries of origin refuse to take them back.
The deal has been criticized for costing more than $1 million in taxpayer money per deportee, according to a February report produced by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Costa Rica reserves the right to reject deportees on an individual case.
Officials in the country have also said they won’t send deportees back to places where they may face persecution.
In 2025, Costa Rica accepted up to 200 migrants deported by the United States, eventually granting special migratory status to 85 of them who were unable to be repatriated to their home nations.
Other nations have signed similar agreements with the Trump administration to accept third-country deportees, including Dominica, Guyana, Honduras, Rwanda, St. Kitts and Nevis and South Sudan.
“Costa Rica is prepared to see this flow of people,” said the country’s public security minister, Marioa Zamora Cordero, in a video statement last month at the time of the signed agreement.
Then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also spoke approvingly of the deal signed with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves.
“We are very proud to have partners like President [Chaves] and Costa Rica, who are working to ensure that people who are in our country illegally have the opportunity to return to their countries of origin,” she said in a statement at the time.
Noem has been visiting various Latin American countries, including Ecuador and Guyana, as part of her new role as US Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, after she was fired from the DHS by President Trump.
With Post wires