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MIGRANT NICARAGUAN WORKERS FACE EVICTION IN COSTA RICA.

Article Excerpt
With no coherent plan to control its influx of foreign workers, Costa Rica has returned to wholesale evictions as a way to deal with undocumented populations (see NotiCen, 2004-02-12). Mostly Nicaraguan, these workers, like those in other better-developed countries, have few rights or protections in a country where they do work that nationals disdain or take jobs the local work force cannot fill. Without these workers, said a recent newspaper editorial, "the construction industry, coffee, and sugar, to mention a few, would very probably enter into crisis if they had to count only upon national personnel."

Without planning, said the editorial, these workers find accommodations as and wherever they can, in an informal manner. Now the country is confronting problems brought about by this informality. And so are the migrants. Data from the Direccion de Migracion y Extranjeria de Costa Rica shows that more than 200,000 Nicaraguans are living in the country. Other, unofficial estimates go as high as a million.

The migrants strain social services and national resources. In an Instituto de Estudios Sociales en Poblacion (IDESPO) poll, most Costa Ricans (88% of respondents) said they believe the Nicaraguans are discriminated against, 66% think these...

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