Where Do Perpetual Tourists Go?
U.S. Passport opens doors but legal residency is required to remain.
Perpetual Tourists in particular from the United States have enjoyed a presence in Costa Rica for many years. The truth is being a perpetual tourist is not the easiest existence as the work opportunities are not really good, and the culture can be difficult to adapt.
Most people who start as perpetual tourists eventually move on, and only stay for any length of time after starting a family. Immigration problems are eventually resolved in the case of marriage, but more often what happens is the birth of a child.
Lacking family ties or some other pretense to apply for legal residency, perpetual tourists often end up with problems. Immigration officials, especially at overland border checkpoints may simply decide to deny entry when they see too many Costa Rican tourist stamps in a passport. Immigration raids at call enters or other places that employ English speaking people are becoming more common. Of course running afoul of the law will also call attention to immigration status.
More often what happens is that a person just doesn’t have the money or patience to make their required 90 day trip, and a check of their passport by local police runs them into problems.
For many years there existed a “service” where some people with corrupt connections at immigration would for a fee take a passport on vacation for 72 hours, and then return the properly stamped passport. Technology and better ink put an end to those types of operations in 2008.
Undocumented foreigners, meaning those carrying no identification always run the risk of arrest, and the latest policy of immigration police is to confiscate passports of tourists who have overstayed their visas. A person in this situation is issued a receipt for their passport and an order to present themselves to the police station at the immigration office in La Urca and submit for further investigation.
The latest immigration law is designed to make it difficult for a person to receive subsequent tourist visas, and immigration officials are granting thirty day visas instead of ninety day visas in some cases. The new immigration law has a provision that requires those with back to back visas to remain out of the country for fourteen days before their third entry, however this has yet to be enforced.
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Filed Under: Expat Living
