- Biden welcoming Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles at the White House.
- The president thanked Costa Rica for approving the 2022 Los Angeles Declaration on Migration.
- Under the Biden administration, the US and Costa Rica came to a broad agreement.
President Joe Biden addressed the region’s unprecedented number of migrants traveling to the US when welcoming Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles at the White House.
The president thanked Costa Rica for approving the 2022 Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, which sought to strengthen legal avenues like refugee resettlement and family reunification, expand temporary worker programs, offer support to nations hosting sizable migrant populations, and crack down on human smuggling networks.
Costa Rica
The Biden administration is under tremendous strain as a result of the historic migration in the Western Hemisphere, and thousands more individuals could yet arrive at the US southern border this fall.
With 248,901 migrants navigating the perilous Darien Gap in 2023, 20% of whom were minors and teenagers, the number of migrants broke a previous record. Border officials are keeping a tight eye on the issue and are worried about the rise in everyday interactions at the border.
To control the migration influx, Chaves Robles emphasized the importance of US connections in the Western Hemisphere.
Costa Rica, which borders Panama, is a crucial component of the administration’s migration strategies because it is one of the nations that many migrants pass through en route to the U.S. southern border.
Under the Biden administration, the US and Costa Rica came to a broad agreement including broad promises to improve enforcement, share information on flows, and stabilize host communities.
Costa Rica, on the other hand, has also been overrun by migrant arrivals, highlighting the difficulty US officials face in depending, in part, on countries with limited resources, to provide legal avenues and deter travel northward.
As part of a new initiative by the Biden administration, a number of nations, including Costa Rica, are preparing to open so-called safe mobility offices, which will allow immigrants to apply for legal immigration to the US and other countries without having to travel to the border.
