A total of 135 migrants, including people from Central Asia, have arrived in Costa Rica on a flight from the United States, where the Trump administration has promised mass deportations and has enlisted several Latin American countries as transit points for migrants being transferred to their countries of origin.
None of the migrants on the passenger plane that arrived at the international airport near the capital of San José on Thursday have been flagged by the United States as a security threat, said Omer Badilla, Costa Rica’s deputy interior minister. Costa Rica is conducting its own checks, he said.
“They’re families, they’re people who don’t have any record” of criminal or allegedly criminal conduct, Badilla told local media. About half of the group are children.
Costa Rica has said the migrants will be held at a temporary facility in the south of the country for up to several weeks prior to their transfer to their countries of origin.
The government originally said it was expecting to receive 200 migrants on Thursday’s flight.
The operation is being supervised by the International Organization for Migration, a Geneva-based United Nations agency that will take care of the migrants while they are in transit, according to the Costa Rican government. Human rights groups have expressed concern that deported migrants could face persecution in some cases if returned by force to their countries.
