As a nation of relative prosperity, safety and stability in Central America, Costa Rica has long attracted large numbers of migrants from the region. In recent years, it has drawn a growing influx from several Caribbean countries as well as from Africa and Asia, including some 22,000 Cubans seeking a route to the United States in 2015.

The more than 400,000 immigrants residing in Costa Rica make up nearly ten percent of the country’s population. It should not be surprising that immigration issues are taking on increasing political and economic importance and posing new foreign policy challenges for Costa Rica within Central America and with the United States, Mexico, Cuba, and other nations.

The Wilson Center held a wide-ranging discussion with President Solis on the multiple immigration challenges confronting Costa Rica, their impact on the country’s politics, economy, and international relations, and how the current administration is proposing to deal with them.

You can watch the discussion, which was held in webcast fashion, below.

Costa Rica and the rest of Latin American nations are undergoing dynamic and rapid change. Historic reductions in poverty, the growth of the middle class, innovative trade alliances, and new technologies and patterns of global insertion have created unprecedented opportunities and challenges as Latin America stands on the precipice of substantially greater global influence.

 

The Wilson Center Latin American Program fosters new research, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among a broad range of stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas.

Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. It aims to inform the most critical debates of the day and propose innovative solutions to the region’s most vexing challenges.