By the A.M. Costa Rica staff

“Rentista category up in the air”

A new immigration law has gone into effect, and those who are seeking residency and the experts who help them are confused.

One problem for expats is that the law is ambiguous on the financial requirements for rentistas. In the past a rentista could show a foreign income of $1,000 a month to qualify. Frequently this was nothing more than $60,000 placed in a foreign or local bank account.

The new law seems to require $60,000 for the primary applicant and $60,000 more for a spouse. For each minor child, an applicant would have to show $30,000 more.

The immigration law actually got passed and went into effect with two sections that conflict on this point. But no one seems anxious to remedy this problem.

The Arias administration said that it wanted to delay the new law going into effect. It even proposed a one line change that would have delayed the effective date until December 2007. But the executive branch took six weeks to submit this small change to the legislature, and lawmakers took their time in reviewing it.

Now that change seems to be moot. It seems unlikely that the legislature can change the effective date when the law already has gone into effect. What is needed now is a new bill to make the changes the Arias administration wants.

The changes would be extensive because Fernando Berrocal, the security minister who oversees immigration, said he does not have the resources to enforce the law. The new law creates penalties for those who employee and harbor illegal aliens. It also criminalizes for the first time human trafficking.

The missteps by the administration and a compliant legislature raise the question of whether the Arias administration let the law go into effect even as officials claimed they opposed it.

The foreign minister, Bruno Stagno, told Nicaraguan officials the law would not go into effect. That irked lawmakers who are jealous of their rights.

Óscar Arias Sánchez calls the law draconian, but a careful reading shows that the law is not unlike similar laws of many countries.

The Arias administration, however, has hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living illegally here, mostly in poor conditions. This is a simmering danger for public safety, and occasional riots do take place in the slums. The Roman Catholic Church opposes the new law, too, because church leaders believe the law could bring problems for shelters and church houses used mainly by illegal Nicaraguans.

Security officials have said their first concern is rooting out corruption in the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería. Corruption is widespread. That was seen Thursday when law officers detained a man believed to be a leader of a Colombian rebel group. He gained residency in what appears to be a fake marriage. And he got his papers in a month, an astoundingly short time for the slow-moving immigration department.

A wave of apparent fake marriages to Chinese and Cubans is under investigation by officials, and some current and former immigration employees are at the center of the probe.

If the assessment of Berrocal is correct, the current administration does not have the resources needed to enforce immigration rules at all. Thousands of persons are living here illegally, and not just Nicaraguan agricultural workers.

David Carruthers, the former BetonSports sportsbook manager imprisoned in the United States, appears to have been working here illegally on a tourism visa.

When police raided the home of another sportsbook operator, they found foreigners with guns. They were identified by Calvin Ayres, operator of Bodog.com, as actors hired to play bodyguards in a film. The men were quietly ushered out of the country. Now, according to sources at Bodog.com, they are back in the country again working as armed bodyguards.

In another case, Escazú investment adviser Mark Boswell, doing business under the name of Rex Howard, openly brags on his Web site that he has been conducting business here for five years while holding just a tourism visa.

Others are not so open, but are what are called perpetual tourists, getting their passport stamped with an exit and entrance visa every 90 days. The status of perpetual tourist is cloudy, but if someone is working on a tourism visa, they are violating the law, old or new.

The new immigration law that the government says it cannot enforce makes that clear. Still,
immigration has been lacking in response when illegal situations are pointed out. In one case, expats were involved in a court case with a businessman here who has just a tourism visa. They asked immigration officials to detain the man but said they were told that the agency has limited staff.

Nicaragua’s foreign minister, Norman Caldera, was very clear in a Managua press conference Saturday when he said Costa Rica has assured him that there would be no enforcement of the new law with regard to his citizens. He also said that he was told the legislature would either change or abolish the new law.

Mario Zamora, director general of Costa Rican immigration, was in the border town of Peñas Blanca over the weekend meeting with the Nicaraguan immigration director, Fausto Carcabelos. They were said to be discussing a possible system that would allow easier border crossings for nationals of both countries.

There has been no change under the new law of the requirements for pensionado. Still required is proof of a pension income of at least $600 a month, spouse included.

Still, there has been no disclosure of the internal regulations that accompany a new law. It would seem that much of the work of the immigration department is frozen now without clear regulations to guide workers.

And no one knows what changes in the new law might actually be made after proposals experience hearings, discussions and amendments in the Asamblea Legislativa.