Immigrants taxing Costa Rica
http://www.newsobserver.com/110/story/421312.html

But the 37-year-old homemaker says things have gotten worse in the past few years. Her explanation: "There are a lot of Nicas here," she said, using a slang term for Nicaraguans.

Martinez says these immigrants, many of them undocumented, are hard-drinking, aggressive people who compete with Costa Ricans for jobs and leech off the nation's public services. She approves of a recent federal law aimed at stemming the influx.

Many Costa Ricans are temperate when discussing immigration. But the continued southward flow of impoverished Nicaraguans into Central America's most prosperous nation has inflamed tensions between these neighbors. The 192-mile border is virtually unguarded, allowing Nicaraguans to slip easily into Costa Rica, where the per capita gross national income of $4,700 is six times higher than in Nicaragua.

Some analysts say Costa Rica has benefited from the steady supply of cheap labor to harvest the nation's bananas and coffee, mop its floors and tend to its children.

Costa Rica boasts the region's highest standard of living and provides universal health care. The nation has invested heavily in education and boasts a thriving technology industry.

But nagging poverty, sluggish economic growth and fraying of the social safety net have made many Costa Ricans fearful that uncontrolled immigration is undermining their hard-won gains. An estimated 180,000 undocumented Nicaraguans account for about 4.5 percent of the nation's population.

Including legal residents, experts calculate that as much as 15 percent of Costa Rica's population is foreign-born. Nicaraguans, who make up most of that population, have been arriving in large numbers for the past 25 years because of war, natural disasters and social instability in their country.

"Even the United States would have problems" absorbing so many newcomers, said economist Eduardo Lizano, president of the San Jose think tank Academy of Central America.

Approved late last year and slated to be implemented in August, Costa Rica's new immigration law is aimed largely at those who profit from undocumented workers. It makes human trafficking a crime punishable by up to six years in prison. And it significantly raises fines on Costa Ricans caught employing illegal immigrants -- to $3,600 per violation, up from as little as $10, said Johnny Marin, Costa Rica's immigration director.

Marin said the nation of slightly more than 4 million people lacks the resources to guard its border or engage in mass deportations.

we should take a page from the CR's.


it's gotten to the point where as nice as it would be, it would be logistically impossible to deport all the illegals here.

what we need to do is take away their ability to work.  post HUGE fines on employers who hire illegals.  if the illegals can't get work here, they will go home

Well its plain to see that those Costa Ricans are close-minded bigots.

What about the Nicarauguan's rights.

Nica? Is that a racial epithet?

Nica please...

I love illegal aliens undocumented migrants.
The new and improved pro illegal alien undocumented migrant 89grand. (It's amazing how a threat of being banned can alter someones outlook on things)

Quoted: Well its plain to see that those Costa Ricans are close-minded bigots. What about the Nicarauguan's rights. Nica? Is that a racial epithet? Nica please...

So the MExicans are complaining about us not being "fair" or compassionate toward the illegals.  Let us ask them about how they treat their own illegals from THEIR southern border.  Hypocritical bastards!

Racist pigs. Let's demand that they give "bilateral migration rights" to allow CR's to work in Nicaragua, and force amnesty down their throats