Costa Rica has one of the highest shares of migrants per population size in Latin America. In addition to being a destination for migrants in the region, especially from neighboring Nicaragua, it is also increasingly a transit country for migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, and elsewhere, traveling through Central America on their way north, primarily in the hopes of arriving to the United States. Amid these mixed migration flows, Costa Rica faces several simultaneous protection, integration, and humanitarian challenges.
In this podcast episode, Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) Program Coordinator Julia Yanoff speaks with Allan Rodriguez Vargas, the Deputy Director of Costa Rica’s Department of Migration and Foreign Affairs (DGME) about the current migration context in the country, what the DGME is doing to address protection and integration needs, and how partnerships, including with PADF, have helped strengthen flexible, interinstitutional responses to complex challenges.
PADF’s partnership with the DGME is made possible thanks to the generous support of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.
I believe that we must constantly and periodically review each and every one of our processes, always listening to the communities, always listening to those who are most affected and whom we as an administration are there to serve."
*Please note that the migration programs mentioned in the podcast are still in progress and may not be fully implemented at the time of this podcast’s publication.
Learn more about PADF’s migration work.
Published on November 23, 2022.
