by Rod Hughes
A bill to simplify residency and to streamline the way the Immigration Department does its business has been submitted to the Legislative Assembly (congress) and the young, dynamic department director, Mario Zamora, hopes for early passage. The bill is meant to replace a current law passed during the past administration but so draconian that the Arias Administration has refused to implement it.
But quick passage is doubtful, given a full congressional agenda that includes ratification of an important trade pact (CAFTA) and 13 bills meant to bring Costa Rica law into harmony with the pact. Meanwhile Zamora and the foreigners who come to his department are stuck with the creaky system that lends itself to corruption and causes frustration and inconvenience to foreigners applying for a residency visa.
But it is not only foreigners who suffer through the present system. Native Costa Ricans applying for passports must also pass through time-consuming procedures to obtain a passport.
Zamora gave the English-language weekly The Tico Times an example of the illogical duplication in the present system. “We ask people for birth certificates when the passport shows date of birth. It’s illogical.”
Ryan Piercy, general manager of the Costa Rican Residents Association, an organization that helps its members through problems associated with living abroad, is taking a laid back view of the bill, pointing out that it was too early for ARCR to start lobbying to protect foreigners’ rights. “We went through this last time (with the current law). It was three years and the (bill) they first proposed was so completely different (from the one that passed congress.”
Elizabeth Fonseca, floor leader of the opposition Citizen Action Party, which opposes the current law as too harsh, is also not holding her breath for immediate passage. She said she has yet to review the bill but is confident that Zamora has turned out a good bill. As for an end of April target for a congessional floor vote? “Could be. God willing,” she told the paper.
Meanwhile, while many Costa Ricas look with alarm on the wave of illegal Nicaraguan immigrants, the Labor Ministry has a different idea. Minister of Labor Francisco Morales has said he is drafting a Labor Code reform to make it easier for foreign workers to enter the country. His ministry estimate that as many as 150,000 foreign workers will be needed in the next three years to augment the nation’s work force.
Nicaraguans, especially, do work that Costa Ricans no longer care to perform, such as coffee picking and menial farm jobs. The reform Morales has in mind would give them more access to social services.