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costa rica
Human Rights Group Blasts Trump Admin for Deporting Hundreds of Non-Costa Ricans to Costa Rica
"These summary expulsions violated the right to seek asylum and the right to a fair hearing and other due process protections prior to deportation," according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
May 22, 2025
Dozens of non-Costa Rican nationals who were deported to Costa Rica by the Trump administration in February say they did not receive an asylum screening interview before being expelled, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch on Thursday.
The report alleges that the U.S. government did not follow the "minimal, if deficient" protections around the right to seek asylum and the right not be returned to harm, and kept those expelled in "inhumane conditions" while they were detained in the United States.
The report explores one instance of the Trump administration expelling migrants to a country besides their country of origin, a tactic the administration has repeatedly reached for as part of its immigration crackdown.
In the report, Human Rights Watch calls on the U.S. government to stop expelling or transferring noncitizens to third countries.
In February, Costa Rica received two flights with 200 deportees, including 81 children, from the U.S. as part of an expulsion agreement, the details of which have not been disclosed, according to the report.
"I genuinely think the [U.S.] authorities treated us so poorly, held us in those horrendous, degrading conditions, to force us to sign those volunteer deportation papers as fast as possible and maybe also to tell others, so that people would be scared to seek asylum, to come to the U.S.," said one 33-year old woman from Russia who was deported to Costa Rica.
In some cases, U.S. officials separated families when carrying out the expulsions to Costa Rica. In one instance, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sent an Iranian man and his daughter to Costa Rica but kept the girl's stepmother in the U.S., according to the report.
Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of the migrants sent to Costa Rica and heard stories from those people that, "if true, indicate that people fled persecution based on factors such as ethnicity, religion, gender, family associations, and political opinion."
U.S. law guarantees the right to apply for asylum, and while many of those who spoke to Human Rights Watch appeared to have strong claims, only two out of 36 people interviewed by the group had a screening interview for asylum in the U.S. before being deported to Costa Rica. Almost all of the 36 people said U.S. officials ignored their repeated attempts to request asylum, per the report.
Some of the people whom Human Rights Watch spoke to had been in Mexico and made appointments to present themselves at a U.S. point of entry to seek asylum through an application developed by CBP, CBP One. When the Trump administration canceled all pending appointments through CBP One, some went to U.S. checkpoints to request asylum, while others crossed irregularly, such as by climbing over or through gaps in the border wall and then sought out or "waited for" U.S. border agents, according to the report.
Once apprehended, those who spoke to Human Rights Watch reported conditions such as freezing temperatures, little access to showers, and families being separated while being held at immigration processing centers.
"In every case documented by Human Rights Watch, DHS expelled people to Costa Rica without following the deportation processes set forth in U.S. law—not even the streamlined process known as 'expedited removal,'" according to the report, referencing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "Instead, acting under the purported authority of a presidential proclamation, DHS agents sent people to Costa Rica, a country of which they are not nationals and to which they had no intention of traveling."
"These summary expulsions violated the right to seek asylum and the right to a fair hearing and other due process protections prior to deportation, in violation of statutory and constitutional guarantees and international treaties ratified by the United States," the report states.
The people interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that they were not given the necessary documents required to be issued during a deportation proceeding. They reported being taken to an airfield and given no explanation until they were about to board the plane to Costa Rica.
Human Rights Watch says those deported were then initially subject to arbitrary detention in Costa Rica, and in practice they were not allowed to freely leave the center where they were being held except under certain circumstances. The Costa Rican government says they were not "detained" and indicated instead that freedom of movement was limited for their own safety, according to the report.
In April, officials in Costa Rica told them they could obtain a humanitarian permit that would give them 90 days to apply for asylum in Costa Rica or leave the country.
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Social Democracies Keep Top Spots on World Happiness Report as US Falls to Record Low
In the U.S., "the downward trend in life satisfaction is particularly steep among young people under 30, especially women."
Mar 21, 2025
For the eighth consecutive year, the World Happiness Report on Thursday found that the countries with the happiest people are those that use their resources to invest in social welfare—and documented a precipitous drop in satisfaction among people in the United States, where President Donald Trump is pushing to destroy public services in the interest of further enriching the country's wealthiest people and corporations.
The top four happiest countries in the world were the same this year as in 2024, with Finland taking the top spot followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden.
The report, compiled by the Wellbeing Research Center at University of Oxford along with Gallup and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, found that the U.S. is continuing to fall down the list—ranking at 24, one spot lower than in 2024. In 2012, when the World Happiness Report was first published, the U.S. held the 11th spot.
The researchers measured several variables that contribute to people's happiness, including social supports, freedom to make life choices, and perceptions of corruption within their country.
Across the world, researchers recorded a drop in "deaths of despair"—preventable deaths from substance use disorders, alcohol abuse, and suicide. But the U.S. was one of two countries—the other being South Korea—where these deaths "rapidly rose," with an average yearly increase of 1.3 deaths per 100,000.
This year's World Happiness Report focuses largely on "the impact of caring and sharing" on people's happiness, noting that the prevalence of volunteering and helping strangers was high in some of the happiest countries, while social isolation in the U.S. was tied to high levels of unhappiness.
"In the United States, using data from the American Time Use Survey, the authors find clear evidence that Americans are spending more and more time dining alone," reads the report's executive summary. "In 2023, roughly 1 in 4 Americans reported eating all of their meals alone the previous day—an increase of 53% since 2003."
But the Costa Rican ambassador to the U.S., Catalina Crespo Sancho, noted at an event hosted by Semafor presenting the annual report, that the way the Costa Rican government invests public funds has helped push it into the top 10 happiest countries for the first time, with Costa Rica ranking sixth in the world.
"We're one of the few countries in the world that does not have an army," said Crespo Sancho. "All that money, they invested in things that our Nordic countries here have been doing for many, many years... Education, social services, health access."
Residents of the happiest countries named in the report benefit from significant public investment in healthcare, education, childcare, and other public services, and live in societies where the divide between the richest households and working people is far smaller than in the United States.
Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and the Netherlands all score below 30 on the World Bank's Gini Index, which measures income inequality, while the U.S. has a score of 41.3, indicating a wider gap between the rich and poor.
The report was released two months into Trump's second term in the White House, which has already been characterized by efforts by Trump and his billionaire ally, tech mogul Elon Musk, to gut public spending on healthcare, education, and the environment in order to fund tax cuts for the richest households. The Republican Party is also aggressively pushing attacks on bodily autonomy in the U.S., passing abortion bans and so-called "fetal personhood" measures as well as laws barring transgender and gender nonconforming people from accessing affirming healthcare.
According to the report, in the U.S., "the downward trend in life satisfaction is particularly steep among young people under 30, especially women."
The report also contextualized the victory of Trump and rise of far-right movements like the president's nationalist, anti-immigration MAGA movement, noting that far-right supporters of "anti-system" political leaders like Trump "have a very low level of social trust."
For the populist right, this low trust is not limited to strangers, but also extends to others in general, from homosexuals to their own neighbors. The xenophobic inclination of the populist right, well-documented worldwide, seems to be a particular case of a broader distrust towards the rest of society. Right-wing populists throughout the world share xenophobic and anti-immigration inclinations. The Sweden Democrats, the Danish People's Party, the Finns Party, the Freedom Party of Austria, Greece's Golden Dawn, the Northern League and Fratelli in Italy, the National Rally in France, and a fraction of the Republican Party in the U.S. are all built on strong anti-immigration foundations.
Meanwhile, "far-left voters have a higher level of social trust," leading them to support "pro-redistribution, pro-immigrant" political groups that offer an alternative to the political establishment with "more universalist values."
In the United States' two-party system, citizens "with low life satisfaction and low social trust" tend to "abstain" from political engagement, according to the report.
"The fall in life satisfaction cannot be explained by economic growth," reads the report. "Rather, it could be blamed on the feelings of financial insecurity and loneliness experienced by Americans and Europeans—two symptoms of a damaged social fabric. It is driven by almost all social categories, but in particular, by the rural, the less-educated, and, quite strikingly, by the younger generation. This low level of life satisfaction is a breeding ground for populism and the lack of social trust is behind the political success of the far right."
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To Prevent Coups Like Niger's, Ban the Recognition of Military Regimes
The institutionalization of such principles under international law would foster democracy and better governance throughout the world.
Aug 04, 2023
The recent military coup in Niger highlights a major weakness in worldwide efforts to promote democracy. It also underscores the need to establish a binding international precedent to ban the recognition of military regimes, particularly those that result from military coups. The institutionalization of such principles would foster democracy and better governance throughout the world.
In international law, the issue of recognition of illegitimate governments has ancient roots. The Tobar Doctrine, proposed in 1907 by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador Carlos Tobar, calls for denying recognition of de facto governments emerging from revolutions against the constitutional order. However, this doctrine never gained widespread acceptance.
The Estrada Doctrine, formulated in 1930 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Genaro Estrada, landed a similar fate. This doctrine also denies recognition to the government that has assumed power by extra-constitutional means. Although both doctrines are known in international law, they did not get the wide recognition they deserved.
It can be argued that non-recognition of de facto regimes will not by itself restore democracy. However, it is, a significant initial step that could be followed by stronger collective measures.
Politics is the driver behind the recognition of illegitimate governments; world powers have often encouraged overturning a constitutional government, as happened in 1973 when the U.S. supported Augusto Pinochet's takeover of the legitimate Allende government in Chile. Overt or implied recognition by Western democracies through ambivalent signs of disapproval have also encouraged military officers to overthrow constitutional governments.
Anthony W. Pereira, Director of the King's Brazil Institute at King's College in London, observed that since the end of World War II, military rule has occurred almost exclusively in developing countries. Military coups d'état reached their height in the 1960s and 1970s.
The playbook in these cases is similar. Although the military often promises a quick return to civilian rule, this almost never happens, and the military remains in power for long periods of time, often through a puppet regime. The military relinquishes power either when forced by popular will, or when its own incapacity to govern makes its position untenable. This happened to the Greek military junta in 1974 after its debacle in Cyprus, to the Chilean regime under Pinochet in 1990, and to the Argentine military after the Malvinas-Falklands conflict of 1982.
The United Nations General Assembly and its International Law Commission could be called upon to draw up appropriate legislation to declare the illegality of all military regimes. As the late U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold observed, the United Nations is "the most appropriate place for development and change of international law on behalf of the whole society of states."
The non-recognition of military regimes as a universal principle raises some practical questions. First, is it possible to apply the precedent retroactively, when military regimes have already been recognized and established? This issue was relevant in the 1923 Tinoco case.
Federico Tinoco Granados was a Costan Rican general who overthrew the constitutional government of Costa Rica in 1917. Two years later Tinoco Granados left the country, after multiple accusations of corruption. The new government in Costa Rica nullified all agreements signed by Tinoco, among them a concession to a British oil company. The matter was submitted to the arbitration of U.S. President William Howard Taft.
The Costa Rican government argued that Great Britain could not enforce the contract because both Costa Rica and the U.S. had not recognized the Tinoco regime. According to Taft, however, Tinoco, who exercised de facto control of the state, even if he had not respected the constitution, had the right to incur debts on behalf of the State. Taft's decision created a debatable precedent whose consequences are felt even today.
Second, what if military forces stage a coup against an oppressive or corrupt civilian regime? An ousted civilian government that has been freely elected by the people should not be denied recognition in favor of a post-coup military regime unless the overthrown government was responsible for gross human rights violations. Further, after a coup, recognition should be withheld until another civilian government is chosen in free and democratic elections.
It can be argued that non-recognition of de facto regimes will not by itself restore democracy. However, it is a significant initial step that could be followed by stronger collective measures. To the contention that non-recognition implies undue interference in a state's internal affairs, this objection loses validity if non-recognition is a consistent precedent of international law as established by the United Nations.
Consistent with this approach, both the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States have condemned the coup in Niger.
Non-recognition of military regimes is a response to increasing worldwide demands to eliminate the plague of military coups d'état. Once established as a legal precedent, it could become a significant step toward world peace, justice, and democracy.
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