By Katherine Stanley - Tico Times Staff

Public Security Minister Fernando Berrocal confirmed yesterday that the Executive Branch will ask the Legislative Assembly to delay until December 2007 the date by which the controversial new immigration law must take effect, saying the government lacks the funds necessary to implement it in August as scheduled.

He also announced that the government will use an executive decree to form a council of representatives from human rights groups, the business sector, the Catholic Church and others to discuss the possibility of changing the law, approved last year. Its measures to crack down on illegal immigrants and the people who hire them have been criticized as unduly harsh by academics, religious figures and President Oscar Arias.

However, although the government is certainly “not opposed” to changing the law, Berrocal said financial concerns are the driving force behind the proposed 14-month delay.

“One can’t oblige the state to (achieve) the impossible,” he said during the press conference following Arias’ weekly Cabinet meeting. “It’s absolutely impossible for this administration to put this law into practice.”

The law would require 671 new police officers and other employees at Immigration in addition to new police officials, vehicles, infrastructure and administrative reforms, at a total cost of ¢7 billion ($13.7 million).

The change has the support of the President’s Cabinet, and the Executive Branch will now meet with party heads within the assembly to determine when to submit the legislation.

The law grants greater freedom to police in their efforts to find and remove illegal immigrants, detention for an undefined length of time for those suspected of being in the country illegally and changes to improve the efficiency of Immigration (TT, Aug. 26, 2005).

Berrocal emphasized that Immigration and the Public Security Ministry will, in the meantime, continue to work to improve the government’s handling of illegal immigration, which he called “an enormous burden.”