Caribbean & Central America - May 2026

In April the first 25 migrants from third countries arrived in Costa Rica under a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed the previous month with Washington, whereby Costa Rica would accept up to 25 third country nationals deported from the US per week. The MoU follows a similar deal struck last year which proved very controversial [SSR-25-04]. It was one of the final efforts of right-wing former president Rodrigo Chaves (2022-2026), who was replaced on 8 May by his ally, President Laura Fernández, to shore up ties with the US administration led by President Donald Trump. Chaves also signed up to the new Shield of the Americas security initiative that Trump launched the previous month with right-leaning regional leaders [SSR-26-04].

On 23 March Costa Rica’s presidency announced the MoU, in relation to which the US would provide finance, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) would provide food and lodging. It was signed during a visit to Costa Rica by Kristi Noem, the US envoy for the Shield of the Americas and former secretary of homeland security (2025-2026), who declared Costa Rica would be “a foundational ally and leader” in the new Shield of the Americas security initiative.

The first flight of 25 migrants then arrived on 11 April under the deal, which has been blasted by human rights groups. A statement dated 26 March and signed by 42 local and international NGOs highlighted that if implemented, Costa Rica would be one of the countries in the world to receive the most deported third country nationals from the US. It warns that this is particularly serious as “it has been demonstrated that there are no conditions in place to guarantee the rights of those who would be subject to the agreement”.

This is a reference to a similar deal struck with the Trump administration in February 2025 under which a total of 200 people arrived in Costa Rica on two deportation flights from the US and were held in a migration ‘reception facility’, known as Centro de Atención al Migrante (Catem). These included nationals of Afghanistan, China, Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, and Vietnam, according to US-based human rights NGO Human Rights Watch.

The February 2025 deal proved hugely controversial. The 26 March statement says that under it, “the Costa Rican state arbitrarily detained them [the migrants], improperly confiscated their identity documents, and failed to provide them with timely medical care, interpretation services, or adequate education or facilities for the children”. It also points to a June 2025 ruling by the supreme court’s constitutional chamber which found that their right to personal liberty had been violated and ordered their release.

Other concerns

A 14 April statement by US-based NGO Refugees International (RI), one of the signatories of the 26 March statement, highlights that of the 25 migrants deported on 11 April, 13 are from countries in Asia and Africa, and 12 were from Honduras or Guatemala, pointing out that these individuals “have no reasonable personal connection” to Costa Rica. It expressed deep concern that some deportees to Costa Rica “may be asylum seekers who were never given a fair chance to present their cases” in the US, or individuals whom US immigration judges have “already ruled should not be returned to their home countries.”

Among other concerns, RI questioned what will ultimately happen to the migrants, given that Costa Rica “has no public shelters available for migrants” in the capital, and US aid cuts “have decimated the humanitarian ecosystem in the country that could provide longer term support”. 

Breaking with tradition

Costa Rica’s alignment with Washington under Chaves, which is set to continue under the new administration led by President Fernández, is not only evident in the migration deal. As Spanish daily El País pointed out in a piece published on 17 April, there have been various other ways in which Costa Rica has broken with its diplomatic tradition of neutrality in hitching itself to Trump.

• Neutrality

In November 1983 Costa Rica’s former president Luis Alberto Monge (1982-1986) formally declared Costa Rica, which abolished its military in 1948, a neutral state in all foreign wars, establishing its neutrality as a binding obligation under international law. This was in response to the various conflicts taking place in Central America during the Cold War.

These include the 8 April declaration by Costa Rica’s national security council that it was formally designating Palestinian militant group Hamas, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Yemen’s Houthi military and political organisation, as terrorist groups. Costa Rica’s foreign ministry said that the decision followed “analysis of available background information, and was in line with Costa Rica’s international commitments in the fight against terrorism and terrorism financing”. However, the move to blacklist Iran’s IRGC and its proxy forces undoubtedly aligns Costa Rica more closely with Washington amid the war in the Middle East.

Another clear sign of the Chaves government’s efforts to endear itself to the Trump administration was its decision announced on 18 March to cut ties with Cuba, on which Washington is piling unprecedented pressure with the aim of forcing its economic opening. The move by Costa Rica, which had re-established ties with Havana in 2009 under former president Óscar Arias (1986-1990, 2006-2010) to end a 48-year diplomatic freeze, marks the first time in decades that a country in Latin America had closed its embassy in Cuba, according to the Miami Herald.

Announcing the closure of its embassy in Havana and withdrawal of diplomatic staff, Costa Rica’s foreign ministry attributed its decision to “a significant worsening of restrictions on basic freedoms” such as the freedom of speech. It also cited a deterioration in living conditions, scarcity of basic goods, and difficulties in accessing food, medicines, and basic services. Chaves himself did not hold back, declaring Costa Rica did not recognise the legitimacy of the  Cuban regime and that “the hemisphere must be cleansed of communists”.

CDAP

In a further sign of US-Costa Rica cooperation, on 13 March the two governments announced that Costa Rica had carried out its first mass deportation of 33 foreign nationals with reported criminal records, from countries including Panama, India, and China, via air and with US assistance under the pilot programme Costa Rica Deportation Assistance Pilot (CDAP).

Gamboa extradited

On 20 March Costa Rica’s attorney general, Carlo Díaz, announced that two “high-profile individuals” were being extradited to the US in what constitutes the first-ever extradition of Costa Rican nationals, which he said marked a “major milestone in the fight against international drug trafficking”. The extraditions were in line with a judicial reform passed by Costa Rica’s 57-member unicameral legislature in May 2025 which allows for the extradition of Costa Ricans for international drug trafficking or terrorism offences [SSR-25-06].

The two individuals in question were former security minister (2014-2018) and supreme court justice (2016-2018) Celso Gamboa, and his alleged associate, Edwin López Vega. Gamboa was arrested in Costa Rica in June 2025, and charged the following month in the US with drug trafficking offences [SSR-25-08]. At the time of Gamboa’s arrest, specialist website Insight Crime described the case as “what may be the most significant drug scandal” in Costa Rica’s history, noting that Gamboa is the highest-ranking Costa Rican official to be arrested on such charges.

According to a statement released on 23 March this year by the US Department of Justice, Gamboa is charged with “conspiring with other international drug traffickers to manufacture, distribute, and transport significant quantities of cocaine, much of which was trafficked through Costa Rica and ultimately into the United States for further distribution”. In the week of his extradition, Gamboa told newswire Reuters that he would testify in the US, and was willing to share information on others involved in the conspiracy if his family’s safety was guaranteed.