At least 17 Salvadorans from gangs known as maras have tried to enter the country and obtain refugee status. This was announced on Wednesday night by the director of the Migration Police Elías Quesada, summoned to the Security Commission together with the director of Migration Raquel Vargas, to explain the attention that the entity is giving to the wave of refugee requests in the country as a result of the political crisis in Nicaragua.
Quesada confirmed that this number of gang members tried to enter the country so far this year and the number of arrests already exceeds the previous one. To detect them, the Migration authorities coordinate with the Judicial Investigation Agency (OIJ), which in turn contacts foreign authorities.
This lack of direct information is one of the weaknesses of the system. The problem, according to the official, is that Costa Rica has a great lack of access to local information in each country, so it is difficult to know if a person seeking refuge is fleeing justice in another country.
The main contacts of Migration are Interpol databases; that is, cases in which there is already an international warrant.
We have detected two things: when a person uses a fake name there is no problem because they are stopped or prevented from entering; but when people don’t have an international arrest warrant, but a national one, that limits our work,”
explained Quesada.
An example is what was happening with American people. When the petitioner asked for a criminal record sheet, the county was changed to present a clean document, so there was no sign that the person was required elsewhere. Now, Costa Rican authorities request a federal document.
We have to work at the regional level… with Panama we already have an agreement to share information and we are moving forward with Colombia… That will help us detect this type of people before they get in,”
said Quesada.