Summary

Why did they bring us here? I don’t speak the language. I know nothing about this country. And here I am with two kids. What am I supposed to do? I cannot sleep at night. My hands are shaking.
—Araz E., a 35-year-old woman from Armenia, interviewed in Costa Rica on April 30, 2025

The United States expelled 200 third-country nationals, including 81 children, to Costa Rica on two flights at the end of February 2025. Many of those expelled had spent months in Mexico awaiting an asylum appointment through a US government mobile application, CBP One. Some were only days away from their scheduled appointments when the US government cancelled all appointments and pending requests on January 20, 2025, the day President Donald Trump took office and issued a proclamation purporting to end access to asylum for “illegal” border crossers.

US law guarantees people the right to apply for asylum regardless of their manner of entry. Although President Trump’s proclamation refers to action against “illegal” border crossers, there was no obvious logic as to who the US government targeted for expulsion. Some had entered the United States irregularly, while others had driven or walked to border posts to seek asylum. One woman and her 1-year-old son had entered the United States five days before the beginning of the Trump administration.

All 200 people were detained in inhumane conditions in border holding cells or immigration processing centers in the United States, often for weeks and in some cases for more than a month. These detention centers are notoriously abusive. They are often overcrowded, very cold, and lit 24 hours a day. People are only allowed to shower once every three or four days, if at all, and in some detention centers can only brush their teeth once a week. Even women who are menstruating are denied the opportunity to wash when they change sanitary pads.

Families are routinely separated while they are in detention. Men and women are placed in different holding cells. Teenage, and even younger, boys are also usually held separately from men and from adult women and girls. One woman told us her 12-year-old son was kept apart from her and her younger child for 29 days.

US Border Patrol agents frequently insulted people, including by cursing at them, and sometimes engaged in other petty displays of power.

US authorities carried out the expulsions to Costa Rica with similar disregard for human dignity. “I was chained with my wrists cuffed to my waist and they put leg shackles on me. It was very distressing for the children to see their dads in handcuffs,” said Baseem P., a 30-year-old man from Afghanistan.

Beginning to cry, he continued, “I felt helpless. I felt terrible. I felt like a criminal.” He was silent for a long time, his head in his hands, and then said:

I felt that I no longer had an identity, that I was without a country.

I always heard great things about America. But they didn’t accept us. It was so hard to be treated in this manner and for my wife and child to see me being treated this way.

We are not criminals. We did not commit murder. We didn’t know why they were treating us like this.[1]

Tanya P., a 33-year-old woman from Russia, echoed these concerns: “I genuinely think the [US] 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 US.”[2]

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents separated some families during these expulsions. In one case, CBP agents sent an Iranian man to Costa Rica without his wife, who remained in US immigration detention. In a second, CBP expelled a 10-year-old Iranian girl and her father to Costa Rica but kept the girl’s stepmother in detention in the United States. And in a third, CBP separated an extended family from Afghanistan, sending one woman to Panama, keeping her husband and 19-year-old brother in the United States, and sending the woman’s sister, brother-in-law, and 14-month-old nephew to Costa Rica.

US law provides for a streamlined deportation process, known as expedited removal, that includes some minimal, if deficient, protection for the right to seek asylum and the right not to be returned to harm. As with earlier expulsions to Panama also documented by Human Rights Watch, the expulsions to Costa Rica did not follow even these minimal protections, nor did they afford people other due process protections set forth in applicable law and regulations. All but two of those Human Rights Watch interviewed said they had no opportunity while in the United States to explain why they feared return to their home countries. “They did not want to know our story. They did not grant us an interview. And we had no idea we were being sent to Costa Rica until we were forced to board that plane the night of February 21 to 22,” said Kamran I., a 37-year-old Mandaen convert from Iran, who fled with his family because of religious persecution.[3]

The two who received asylum screening, or “credible fear,” interviews were told immediately afterward by CBP that they were being expelled.

Indeed, in May, President Trump questioned whether due process—a constitutional requirement applicable to all “persons” and an international obligation the United States has pledged to uphold—applies to deportations.

Among those expelled to Costa Rica were two pregnant women, several people over 60, and 81 children ranging in age between 1 and 17. Their countries of origin included Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Nepal, the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen. Between March 1 and April 30, 2025, Human Rights Watch interviewed 36 of those expelled to Costa Rica, many during a three-day visit at the end of April to the Temporary Migrant Reception Center (Centro de Atención Temporal de Migrantes, CATEM), the migrant center where they were housed, and some by phone or text message over the prior two months.

Neither the US nor the Costa Rican government has disclosed the details of the expulsion agreement. Announcing the decision to accept the flights, Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves said: “We are helping the economically powerful brother to the north [the United States], who if they impose a tax in our free [trade] zones, it’ll screw us.”[4] Chaves and other Costa Rican officials have said that the United States is covering the costs of the deported people’s stay in Costa Rica.

Costa Rican officials have described the country’s role as a “bridge” to people’s home countries. Omer Badilla, Costa Rica’s deputy minister of the interior and director of its Migration Directorate, told reporters: “According to the information the government of the United States has provided to us, the vast majority, nearly all, have a desire to return to their countries of origin.”[5]

But the people interviewed by Human Rights Watch contradicted this narrative and expressed fear that they would face serious risks to their lives or safety if sent to their home countries. As of May 7, 2025, more than two months after their transfer to Costa Rica, just under half of the 200 third-country nationals expelled from the United States had agreed to return to their home countries, Costa Rica’s Migration Directorate told Human Rights Watch. Those who have agreed to return did so after detention in the United States in abusive conditions, forcible expulsions to a country they had never intended to be in, two months of detention in Costa Rica, and mixed messages from Costa Rican officials about their options, raising questions as to whether their decisions were truly voluntary.

Costa Rican officials repeatedly informed people for more than a month that their only options were to return to their home countries or to travel to another country that would accept them.

On March 26, Costa Rican officials notified them for the first time that they had two additional options: they could request asylum in Costa Rica, or they could receive “special humanitarian” status. The officials did not initially explain what the special humanitarian category was or how long it would last.

Human Rights Watch heard from people who said Costa Rican officials had asked them to list any countries they wanted to relocate to—and in some cases asked specifically, “Who wants to go to Canada?”[6]—raising expectations that they would be rapidly resettled to the country of their choice. The Migration Directorate rejected these accounts, describing them as “completely divorced from reality, as several of the migrants themselves have expressed their desire to go to Canada, and it was not this General Directorate that offered them that option.”[7]

It was unclear that Costa Rica could make such arrangements quickly, if at all. “These countries have rigorous processes for resettlement. These processes take many months, if not years,” a former Costa Rican migration official told Human Rights Watch in April.[8]

People were detained for up to two months in the migrant center, located in Puntarenas province, near the border with Panama and some 300 kilometers from San José. There was no legal basis for their detention, as Costa Rica agreed to allow them to enter, provided them temporary status in Costa Rica prior to their arrival, and never accused any of a crime. (The Costa Rican government denies that they were in detention.)

The Costa Rican government’s decision to accept the US expulsion flights was controversial. Costa Rican journalists closely followed the flights’ arrivals, attempted and eventually succeeded in visiting the migrant center, and regularly reported on it.

By April 23, news accounts were describing the Chaves government’s plan to return all third-country nationals to their home countries as a failure. Eighty-five people remained in the center as of that date, with countries of origin that included Afghanistan, Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, India, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Russia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.

In a positive move that same week, the Costa Rican government informed everybody who remained at the center that they could come and go freely from the center during daylight hours. Migration officials began to return people’s passports on April 23 and informed them that they could obtain a special humanitarian permit giving them 90 days to apply for asylum in Costa Rica or leave the country.

The permit costs US$55 per person, with the possibility of a fee waiver, and is renewable once. It does not allow people to work.

People expressed frustration with the different messages they had heard from Costa Rican authorities. “The government of Costa Rica makes promises and then breaks them,” said Timur M., a 37-year-old man from Turkey.[9]

On April 28, the first of the three days of Human Rights Watch’s visit to the center, about 50 third-country nationals remained there. A few were planning to seek asylum in Costa Rica. Some had given up and agreed to be returned to their home countries despite the risks they faced there. Others had simply decided to try to travel elsewhere.

Assessing the treatment of those expelled by the US government and their time in Costa Rica, Daniil N. said, “I think the strategy is to break us so we will give up.”[10]

* * *

The United States should stop expelling or transferring noncitizens to third countries. It should allow those wrongfully removed to return and seek asylum in line with its international obligations. It should stop violating the principle of nonrefoulement—that is, not returning people to a country where they are likely to face harm—by processing asylum claims at its border, rather than deflecting this responsibility to countries with less capacity to assess claims or provide protection and at the risk of onward deportations resulting in return to danger.

Costa Rica should definitively state that it will accept no further third-country nationals from the United States.

The Costa Rican government should also—as a partial remedy for the harm it caused by two months of arbitrary detention and in acknowledgement of its responsibility for having accepted people being sent to Costa Rica against their will—provide immediate work authorization, housing assistance, and, as needed, job training, language lessons, and job placement assistance to all those who wish to seek asylum in Costa Rica.

Both governments should immediately work together to identify other rights-respecting options to resolve the status of those third-country nationals stranded in Costa Rica, including by allowing them to seek asylum in the United States or by arranging safe and voluntary resettlement elsewhere.
 

Recommendations

To the US Government

• Stop the expulsion or involuntary transfer of noncitizens to third countries to which they have no genuine ties.
• Offer humanitarian or public-benefit parole to any of the 200 individuals who were wrongfully expelled from the United States to Costa Rica to allow them to apply for asylum in the United States.
• Respect the right under US law of any person who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States, whether or not at a designated port of arrival, irrespective of the person’s status, to apply for asylum.
• Ensure that US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) holding cells are used for very short periods of confinement only, which should not exceed 10 hours. CBP should detain individuals overnight in holding cells only when it is unavoidable and should never detain children overnight.
• Develop written guidance for CBP to ensure that family members arriving together are subject to a presumption of liberty and not unnecessarily or intentionally separated, and establish a process to ensure that CBP implements it.
• Do not use physical restraints when transporting noncitizens for immigration enforcement purposes in the absence of a reasonable, individualized basis for regarding the person as a danger to themselves, the crew, or other passengers. Ensure that noncitizens being detained or transported are treated humanely and with dignity, including by providing them with food and water, and are kept in reasonable temperatures with sufficient air circulation.
• Always return passports and other documents and possessions to non-citizens who are being removed from the United States.

To the Costa Rican Government

• Definitively end the acceptance of third-country nationals from the United States.
• Provide those third-country nationals who seek asylum in Costa Rica with housing assistance, employment authorization and job placement assistance, and intensive Spanish language lessons.
• Ensure that children in the Temporary Migrant Reception Center (Centro de Atención Temporal de Migrantes, CATEM) have immediate access to preprimary, primary, and secondary education, services all children are entitled to under Costa Rican law.
• Help to facilitate family reunification and/or voluntary repatriation with full and informed consent for those opting to return to their home countries.
• Ensure that all those expelled from the United States to Costa Rica, including those who have not decided which option to pursue as well as those who decide to seek asylum or who apply for humanitarian permits, have access to free intensive Spanish-language lessons, free, quality, and rights-respecting medical, psychosocial, and mental health care services, and integration programming that provides them an understanding of life in Costa Rica, including information about its culture, legal system, and employment opportunities.

To the United Nations Human Rights Council

• Establish a mechanism to monitor rights abuses faced by people in transit across international borders, as recommended by civil society and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants at the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council.
   

Methodology

Three Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed a total of 36 third-country nationals expelled from the United States to Costa Rica, including 31 face-to-face, private interviews during a three-day visit to the Temporary Migrant Reception Center (Centro de Atención Temporal de Migrantes, CATEM) in Corredores canton, Puntarenas province, Costa Rica, from April 28 to 30, 2025. Human Rights Watch also conducted interviews by telephone or text message between March 1 and April 25, 2025, including with some of the people interviewed in person at the end of April.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 21 women and 15 men from the following countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. All third-country nationals interviewed for this report are identified by pseudonyms.

Interviews were conducted in English, Russian, French, and Portuguese, or with the use of Dari, Farsi, and Turkish interpreters. All interview subjects were assured of confidentiality and, accordingly, pseudonyms are used throughout this report even though some interview subjects have revealed their names to journalists. In some cases, we have withheld other information likely to identify the speaker. Interview subjects were told the interviews were voluntary and could be terminated at any time, and that they would receive no payment or personal benefit from the interview.

This report also draws on reporting by Costa Rica’s National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture (Mecanismo Nacional de Prevención de la Tortura), which is within the office of the ombudswoman (Defensoría de los Habitantes) and which was able to inspect the center in March and interview people detained there.[11]

Human Rights Watch wrote to Costa Rica’s Ministry of the Interior, Police and Public Security (Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública) on March 31 and May 12, 2025, and to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on May 11, 2025. CBP did not respond to our letter before this report’s publication.  

The Ministry of the Interior forwarded our March 31 letter to the Migration Directorate (Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería) on April 24, and the Migration Directorate responded to us on May 7. The Migration Directorate responded to our second letter on May 15. These responses, along with the May 6 response to a March 27 joint letter sent by [JS1] Amnesty International, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Refugees International, the Washington Office on Latin America, and the American Friends Service Committee, are reflected in this report, and unofficial translations of each letter in full are included in the appendix.

This report uses the term “third-country nationals” to refer to people who are not citizens of Costa Rica or the United States. In line with international standards, the term “child” refers to a person under the age of 18.[12]
 

Fleeing Homes in Search of Safety

Baseem P. fled Afghanistan with his wife, Khadeeja, in 2022 after members of the Taliban came to his brother’s house looking for him. He explained:

I have no way to return to Afghanistan. I was a government employee working in one of the country's key institutions—the Office of the National Security Council of Afghanistan. In addition to this, there are other serious threats we face, including my ethnicity—I am a member of the Hazara ethnic minority—and our religious belief (Shia), which makes us targets of violence, discrimination, and even murder by terrorist groups such as the Taliban and ISIS.[13]

Human Rights Watch heard many other accounts that, if true, indicate that people fled persecution based on factors such as ethnicity, religion, gender, family associations, and political opinion. Many people showed us corroborating evidence of their accounts—scars they pointed to on their bodies from torture, identity cards showing government service, documents describing their religious conversions or political activities, arrest warrants on vague or otherwise abusive charges, photos of injuries they sustained during beatings, and detailed chronologies of events. Although many had what appeared to be strong claims for asylum, only 2 of the 36 people we interviewed received a screening interview for asylum—a “credible fear” interview—in the United States before being expelled to Costa Rica. 

Among the many such accounts Human Rights Watch heard:

• “I was an activist, took part in public protests . . . and at the end of December 2024, FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service] agents ‘invited me’ for a ‘conversation’ and gave me a choice: either to spy for them on other activists or to be sent to the frontline [in Ukraine]. I fled less than three weeks later—with my wife and child . . . I went to the US to ask for asylum because I couldn’t return to Russia—but they did not even grant me an interview.”
  —(Eduard G., from Russia, April 28, 2025)

• “I left due to my political activism. I supported the women’s rights movement Zan Zendegi Azadi in Iran. I am a Christian. I fled because I thought I was about to be arrested since my friend had just been arrested. I was previously arrested when I was 23 years old in 2008. I was part of the Green Movement. I was working at my father’s place. [The authorities] came to my place of work and arrested me. I was blindfolded and taken to what is called a ‘safe house,’ where they put arrested people for a short time while they torture them. I was five days in that ‘safe house.’ The scars on my head are from that torture. From their voices, I knew it was two people. They started with verbal abuse but on the third day they pushed my head against a heater and burned me.”
  —(Beyrouz H., from Iran, April 28, 2025)

• “We are atheists and our families are observant Muslims who did not want us to raise our child as an atheist. They want our child to be a Muslim. . . . Our relatives made verbal threats against us. I filed a complaint with the police, but the family said this is a family matter that they would not get involved with.”
  —(Taner B., from Turkey, April 30, 2025)

• Daniil N. and his wife, Sasha M., said they fled Russia with their 6-year-old son after Daniil, an election worker, tried to expose irregularities in the country’s 2024 election.[14]

Arduous Journeys

People described harrowing journeys to reach the United States, in some cases enduring violence, extortion, robbery, the loss of identity documents, and other hardships. Some traveled circuitous routes. Many spent nearly everything they had in an effort to find safety.

Baseem told us:

We had to cross extremely dangerous routes, including through dense jungles. My daughter, who at that time was not even one year old, was with us in those harsh conditions. The sound of heavy rain, thunder, and the countless noises of wild animals, birds, and reptiles were terrifying. We still carry the psychological trauma and nightmares from those days.

Along the way, we witnessed many heartbreaking scenes. Due to violent and heavy rains, some families lost their children in flash floods. We saw human corpses, people with severe injuries such as broken limbs, and others who had fainted from hunger or dehydration.[15]

We heard similar accounts from others. Some, including Marie T. and her husband, Vincent, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, crossed the Darien Gap, a swampy jungle on the Colombia-Panama border where many people have faced serious abuses and dozens, if not hundreds, have lost their lives.[16]

CBP One Appointments Cancelled

Some of the people who spoke to Human Rights Watch said they had been waiting in Mexico, often for months, for a CBP One asylum appointment—a fixed time for people to present themselves at a US point of entry to seek asylum, scheduled through a mobile application developed by CBP, known as CBP One—before the administration of President Donald Trump cancelled all pending CBP One appointments on January 20, 2025. For instance:

• Daniil N., a 36-year-old man from Russia, said he, his wife, and their 6-year-old son registered with CBP One as soon as they arrived in Mexico in 2024. For months, he said, “We did not consider [entering the United States irregularly], since it was not approved by the authorities of the United States of America,” preferring to wait for the appointment even though he and his wife were aware that irregular entry did not under US law prevent them from making an asylum claim. He continued, “After 238 days of waiting in Mexico we finally got a date for CBP One, and six days later, on January 20, 2025, it was cancelled without any options for our further asylum request.”[17]

• Baseem P. told Human Rights Watch he, his wife, and their newborn daughter waited in Mexico for five-and-a-half months for their CBP One appointment, which was scheduled for January 26, 2025. “On January 20, 2025, at 10 a.m., I received an email that said my appointment was cancelled. . . . I felt utterly hopeless. I went to the border and saw people gathered there. Everyone was crying. The Mexican police told us everything was cancelled and they can’t allow us to cross the border.”[18]

• Elçin A., from Azerbaijan, said, “We spent 65 days in Mexico. We had a CBP One appointment for February 1, at 5 p.m. at the San Ysidro port of entry. It was cancelled on January 20, 2025.”[19]

• Karina B., from Russia, said that she registered with CBP One on November 19, 2024, a few days after she and her children arrived in Mexico. “We were just waiting for our appointment date. Some others traveling through Mexico at that time told me to cross irregularly. On the day of the inauguration, it was no longer possible to confirm CBP One; that option had been deactivated. I was in complete shock. We had spent all that time waiting for an appointment,” she told Human Rights Watch.[20]

Some of those with cancelled CBP One appointments drove to a border crossing station, or “port of entry,” and requested asylum from CBP agents as soon as they reached the window.

For instance, Maya M., her 17-year-old daughter, and her 22-year-old nephew, all from Russia, registered with CBP One on August 30, 2024, and, as required, logged on every day thereafter to confirm their intent to seek asylum. On January 20, 2025, they discovered that the app no longer allowed them to confirm that they were seeking an asylum appointment. They drove to the border station at Calexico, California, on February 16. Her nephew, who was driving, handed their passports to the border agent and said they were all seeking asylum. “We were then immediately handcuffed, including my daughter,” Maya told Human Rights Watch. “CBP said there is a new president and we will be deported.”[21]

In a similar account, Eduard G., the 26-year-old from Russia, told Human Rights Watch he, his wife, and their daughter drove with another family of four to the border station at Tecate, California, on January 24. “We drove up to the booth, and I handed over all of our passports and asked for asylum. The officers laughed. They said, ‘We have a new president, now you don’t stand a chance.’”[22]

Daniil N. and his family did the same. “We had no choice but to buy a car and try to request political asylum in the USA by driving to the checkpoint and surrendering to the US authorities there.”[23]
 

Incommunicado Detention in the US in Inhumane Conditions

Tanya P., 33, from Russia, described the 32 days she spent in the Otay Mesa immigration detention center in San Diego, California:

The conditions were beyond awful. There wasn’t enough food, we weren’t allowed outside at all, even the kids. When my daughter and I were brought there, they [the guards] put us into a “family room”—which held 23 to 25 women and approximately 14 children. In a few days, I got really sick—high fever, vomiting, etc. The guards moved me to a small separate cell together with my daughter. I begged them to leave the child in the family room—I did not want her to catch that virus and there were some friendly women who were eager and willing to take care of her. But the guards insisted on moving her too. We were in that cell for five days. I was so ill I thought I would not make it. I actually had heart pains and fainted twice. My daughter was frightened, hysterical. A medic checked me out but didn’t do anything except giving me a few anti-flu pills.

In the “family room,” there was a young woman with a 5-month-old baby. The guards gave her formula and cold water. She kept pleading with them to warm the water but they wouldn’t budge . . . . Eventually, that woman got moved to another detention center [without her infant] and the officers simply put her husband in a small cell with the baby and their other child, who was about five. For 10 days, the husband had to manage on his own, diluting the formula in cold water, changing the baby, dealing with the other child who was crying and missing his mommy. Then the husband got released with the kids—we now keep in touch—but the woman is still in detention.

We also had a young pregnant woman in the “family room” . . . . She was over five months along. And like everyone else, she slept on that thin mat, on the cold floor. After 25 days, she got deported. She was crying, did not want to be sent back to Russia. I’m now in touch with her—she had her baby prematurely, the baby is very small. 

Another woman broke her tooth and suffered a horrible toothache. She couldn’t sleep, was constantly in pain. On rare occasions, they gave her some [over-the-counter] painkillers, but the pain was too excruciating, those pain killers didn’t do much. We all begged the officers to take her to a dentist for an extraction, but no. So, after a week of this nightmare, one of the women tore the remaining fragment of the tooth out of her gum with her bare hands and nails, blood and all.

All the kids had diarrhea or were puking or both. Their stomachs were constantly upset because of the unhealthy food. Sometimes, all they’d get for breakfast were spicy burritos. The toilet bowl was right in the room, and it was busy, to say the least, but the flush button was actually outside the cell. So, every time we needed to flush, we had to call the guards—and sometimes they’d accommodate us and sometimes they just would not come and then finally flush in the middle of the night, waking the kids. That flushing “woosh” was really loud—my daughter is still afraid of loud sounds and back at that place, she would always wake up screaming.

The room was cold, with the aircon going full blast 24/7. We were freezing—no warm clothing, thin mats and just one foil blanket per person. One of the officers took pity on us and gave us extra foil blankets, but the next day other officers took those blankets away. I guess we weren’t good enough for two blankets—they wanted us to freeze.

And with so many days in detention, women eventually had their periods and this was the ultimate humiliation—in order to get a clean sanitary napkin, you actually had to show the dirty one to the guards, to prove that you actually used it up. And with only one water tap above the toilet bowl and no clean cloth, you couldn’t wash or anything.[24]

Each of the people Human Rights Watch interviewed entered the United States from Mexico in January or February 2025. Some went to a border crossing station (a “port of entry”), handed border agents their passports, and requested asylum. Others crossed irregularly—such as by wading across the river that runs along part of the international border or by climbing over or through gaps in border walls or fences—and walked over to, flagged down, or waited for US Border Patrol agents.

People apprehended by the US Border Patrol or by the uniformed agents who staff ports of entry usually spend some time in border station holding cells or immigration processing centers while US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency that includes the Border Patrol, decides how to process their cases. These facilities are designed to hold adults—not children—for up to 72 hours.[25] But the people interviewed for this report said CBP placed them in holding cells or immigration processing centers for periods that ranged from one week to a month or more.

One woman—Tanya P., from Russia—said that she was allowed one phone call to her US-based relatives on the day CBP agents apprehended her and a second call 20 days later, but none of the other people interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they were allowed to contact relatives or friends to tell them where they were detained. Signs posted on the walls advised them that they could call a lawyer, but when they asked to do so, CBP agents denied their requests or ignored them. For example:

• “There was a poster on the wall that said we had the right to a phone call but in actuality we couldn’t make a call,” said Farah A., a 42-year-old woman from Azerbaijan.[26]

• “We had no access to phones. We had no permission to contact anyone,” Baseem P., a 30-year-old man from Afghanistan, told Human Rights Watch.[27]

• “Our family didn’t know we were alive. There was a poster on the wall that said people could contact their family. I told them someone in my family had been killed and that it was important to talk to my family, but the officials wouldn’t let me,” said Nasrin M., a 25-year-old woman from Turkey.[28]

These and other accounts we heard match those of third-country nationals expelled to Panama in January 2025.[29]

Conditions in US immigration holding cells and processing centers are consistently abusive. They are often uncomfortably cold—in fact, Spanish speakers held in these detention facilities commonly refer to them as hieleras (freezers)—and Border Patrol agents regularly limit people to a single layer of clothing. Some people receive showers once every three or four days or even less often; others have no access to showers at all. They cannot brush their teeth more than once a week, if at all. Cells are often overcrowded and usually lit 24 hours a day, and the constant movement of people and frequent shouted orders from border agents mean that people are rarely able to sleep more than an hour or two at a time. Men are held separately from women, and teenage boys are held in separate cells, meaning that families are often split up.[30]

Without exception, the people interviewed for this report described conditions that matched these and other longstanding problems in US immigration detention facilities. For example:

• “It was so, so cold in those cells. The immigration agents who arrested us made us throw everything we had in the garbage. We could not keep any extra layers of clothing,” said Marie T., 32, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.[31] We heard similar accounts from others.[32]

• “The holding cells were freezing, with powerful fans constantly blowing. Children and adults became sick, but no medication was provided—we were only told to drink water,” Sasha M., from Russia, told Human Rights Watch.[33]

• “We were only allowed one shower for one minute once a week,” said 30-year-old Leyla H., from Turkey, held for 10 days with her sons, 5 and 8.[34]

• Anahit B., a 34-year-old from Armenia, said that during the month she and her two daughters, aged 2 and 7, were held in immigration detention, “we were only allowed to change underclothes and T-shirts twice.”[35]

• “We kept asking guards to dim the lights, but they refused. The lights were on 24/7. We almost went bonkers during that time. You don’t know if it’s night or day, don’t know what’s happening to you,” said Karina B., a 42-year-old woman from Russia.[36]

Parents said the rules imposed by CBP made it challenging to maintain hygiene for younger children. Anahit, the 34-year-old Armenian woman, told us:

We were not allowed combs, so we secretly took plastic forks from the dining halls to untangle kids’ hair. We also tried using ribbons from medical masks to tie kids’ hair and our own but if the officers saw them, they always took them away from us and yelled at us.[37]

CBP also does not allow people to use nail clippers, regardless of the length of time they are detained. Several parents said their children injured themselves as a result. Tanya P., 33, from Russia, said, “I could not cut my daughter’s nails even once during those 32 days, and toenails especially were a problem – one of them literally grew in, my daughter was in pain and the officers still would not give me clippers even for a quick second.”[38] “My daughter scratched her eye [because her nails were long and unfiled], and the eye got infected,” Anahit said.[39] Daniil and Sasha said their 6-year-old son accidentally scratched his face, drawing blood, as his nails grew longer during the month the family was detained.[40]

Parents said that the food was not healthy for children, particularly those who were held for many days or weeks. Eduard G., a 26-year-old man from Russia, said, “The food was mostly instant noodles and burritos. This was especially bad for children. Some children would refuse to eat. My child became really fat after 30 days; other children lost a lot of weight.”[41] CBP provides fruit for children, but only those under eight years of age, others told us.

People held in the Otay Mesa detention censer near San Diego, where many people spend their days in one of several large tents, said their detention was especially protracted, in some cases more than a month, and described conditions that were particularly bad.[42] Maya M., a 45-year-old woman from Russia, said:

The conditions in the tent camp were completely horrendous. Officers were yelling, screaming obscenities, getting physical with us, even pushing people around. I saw officers drag an Afghan woman off after she refused to let them take her hijab. When she returned, she looked drugged. At one point, the officers made all of the males crouch down for 40 minutes with their hands behind their heads. One Russian man had trouble crouching—his leg probably seized up, and when he tried to stretch his leg out, an officer hit him on the leg with a rubber baton.[43]

In another such account, Araz E., a 35-year-old woman from Armenia, said:

CBP forcibly took us to San Diego, to a tent camp, some kind of a base. There were several tents—with about 50 people squashed into them. There were lots of armed police officers with green insignia. They were yelling at us, shoving some people. “Shut up! Quiet!” They even screamed at kids! And so many guns. We were afraid they’d shoot us. All the men got handcuffed and shackled as the children were watching, horrified. They could not care less about the kids crying.[44]

Because the Otay Mesa detention center does not have showers, CBP buses people to the San Ysidro immigration detention center, about 15 kilometers away, to shower. Eduard G., the 26-year-old from Russia, spent 32 days in Otay Mesa with his wife and their child. He said, “Every three to four days we were put in vehicles and taken to San Ysidro to take a shower. Those were the only times we would see the sky and get a glimpse of fresh air.”[45] Karina B., 42, also from Russia, said, “When we reached San Ysidro, we would be given soap and shampoo, but brushing our teeth was a problem. Once a week we were issued a packaged toothbrush with a thin layer of toothpaste already smeared on the toothbrush.”[46]

Wherever they were held, people often said that being separated from their spouse—or worse, their children—was the most traumatic part of their time in US immigration detention. Araz E., the 35-year-old woman from Armenia, told us:

The most horrible thing was that once they brought us to the San Ysidro detention center, they just took my 12-year-old boy away. He was crying, begging to stay with me, but they did not pay any attention. For 29 days my child was separated from me. Sometimes he was in a cell all alone, sometimes with other boys aged 13 to 15. I was so afraid for him; I was afraid the other boys would hurt him. And at 12 he really didn’t know how to take care of himself. He’s just a child! He’d never ever been on his own. The officers would only let me see him for five minutes once every several days. Nine days into the detention, he broke his eyeglasses. He has very bad vision—he really cannot function without eyeglasses. I begged the officers to get his glasses fixed. I had the money to pay. But they would not listen, leaving my child nearly blind for another 20 days. . . .

And all that horrible month there I could not even afford to cry – my younger boy was with me all the time, I was afraid to frighten him, I had to keep up a good front for his sake. And whenever I got to see my 12-year-old I also could not show him how frightened and upset I was. Also, I could barely eat—whenever I went to the mess hall, I kept praying they’d bring my son to see me even for a few minutes.[47]

People who were separated in this way could see each other only for short periods of time, if at all:

• Grigoris D., a 35-year-old man from Armenia, told us that during their 26 days in immigration detention, he and his wife were allowed to see each other for half an hour.[48]

• “I was separated from my husband. We saw each other only a couple times for 15 minutes” during their 15 days in detention, said Farah A., a 42-year-old woman from Azerbaijan.[49]

Children found it difficult to be separated from their fathers, their parents told Human Rights Watch:

• “It was very hard for the children to be apart from their father,” Khadeeja said. “They kept crying, saying, ‘We want to see our father.’”[50]
• Sasha M., held for one month in Otay Mesa with her husband and 6-year-old son, said she and other parents would make balls out of their foil blankets for their children to play with. “Within a month the children were tired, started to quarrel with each other, get sick. We did not go outside at all, did not see the sun and did not breathe air. . . . Toward the end of staying there, [my son] began to cry often, he wanted to go out into the fresh air and see his dad.”[51]

People described other behavior by CBP agents that appeared primarily to be aimed at inflicting humiliation and emphasizing agents’ power and control. For example:

• Women who were menstruating said the treatment they faced was particularly degrading. “I was menstruating when I was in the detention cells,” said Marie T., 32, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She continued, “The guards would give us new pads, but they didn’t allow us to wash. This was humiliating.”[52] Some agents also made women show that their sanitary pad was stained before they could get a new one, they said.[53]

• Karina B., a 42-year-old woman from Russia, said one of the women in her cell repeatedly begged the officers to let her have her prescription medication for a serious heart condition, but the officers refused.[54]

• Beyrouz H., a 39-year-old from Iran, said that CBP agents “were rude to my daughter and verbally harassed her. They told us we would be deported to Iran. My daughter was crying a lot.”[55]

• Farah A., from Azerbaijan, told us, “Our daughter is 8 years old. They only give fruit to children younger than 8. The other children were eating bananas and my daughter wanted one too and began to cry. I asked the guard if she would give my daughter a banana. The guard then took a banana and ate it in front of my daughter.”[56]

Summing up her time in immigration, Marie T., the 32-year-old woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo, said, “It was traumatizing.”[57]

Immigration detention of any duration is known to be particularly harmful to children,[58] and parents said the time in US immigration detention took a toll on their children’s mental well-being. For example, Anahit B. told us:

When we arrived at the CATEM [in Costa Rica], my older daughter was under such stress that she had to see a psychologist every day—she was afraid she’d be taken away from me because in the US, in detention, she saw other kids getting separated from their parents. She was afraid of men in uniform when she came here, and it took her a while to realize that local officers were non-threatening.[59]
 

Summary Expulsions from the United States

Upon apprehension and during time spent in US immigration detention, US authorities ignored repeated requests for asylum, the people interviewed by Human Rights Watch consistently told us. In many instances, US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials told them there was no more asylum in the United States. In every case documented by Human Rights Watch, DHS expelled people to Costa Rica without following the deportation processes set forth in US law—not even the streamlined process known as “expedited removal.” 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 travelling.

The manner of expulsion was particularly traumatic for many people, especially children, Human Rights Watch heard. As Karina B., a 42-year-old woman from Russia, explained:

CBP agents woke us up at 3 a.m. in a rush. They handcuffed and shackled all the men and women. One officer said, “We are going to put you on a plane to take you to a border detention center in Arizona.” I thought we would get an interview there. They put us into vehicles and took us to a military aircraft. We were surrounded by lots of military with automatic guns, their faces covered, all in masks. The children were either sleepy or hysterical because of the armed men. Photographers were filming everybody, including kids, not asking permission to do so. We were squashed onto the plane. It was very cold. Children were screaming because they were frightened. The military said we were headed to Arizona.

We were unshackled when the plane took off. We landed and were herded onto buses. I thought we were going to another detention center to be interviewed. Instead, we were taken to another plane. That's when the military told us this plane was bound for Costa Rica. I screamed and cried. A soldier told me through another Russian speaker that I would be shackled and dragged into the plane if I didn’t cooperate. He said a decision was made about our deportation. A woman in civilian clothing said to the officer, “Why are you mollycoddling her?” She grabbed my arm. The officer had her stop. He told me I should cooperate. He told me to act in the best interests of my children. “Don’t traumatize them further, don't let them see you shackled,” he said.[60]

Recalling the way CBP treated him and others during their expulsion, Clement F., a 43-year-old man from the Democratic Republic of Congo, said, “They treated us with utter inhumanity. They treated us like slaves. I don’t know how this is possible in a country that stands for freedom, in the land of rights.”[61]

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. These summary expulsions also created a real risk of onward return to persecution, torture, or other serious harm, as discussed later in this report, also in violation of domestic and international law.

Parents Handcuffed in Front of Children, No Information About Destination

Eduard G., 26, from Russia, described the way he, his wife, and child were expelled to Costa Rica:

We were taken to an airport, a civilian airport. Some people started screaming, asked for asylum, being forced [off the bus]. . . . Then an officer said, “At 3 a.m. you will be put on a flight to Arizona, then you will be in a detention center there, that’s when your situation will be resolved.” At 3 or 4 a.m., agents called out 20 people from different cells. All the adults, including women, were handcuffed and shackled. My child asked, “Daddy, did they arrest you?” The child was terrified.

We entered police vans, drove for an hour, and were put on a Hercules military plane. This was again very frightening for the kids. Next to the plane as we boarded, there were military officers with automatic guns, in body armor. Two other officers with guns were on the plane. On board, officers unshackled all of us. My wife speaks really good English, and she asked, “Where are you taking us?” “You are going to Arizona,” an officer replied.

The flight landed. CBP officers put all of us on a bus, and the bus took us directly to another plane. While we were on that bus driving toward the aircraft, CBP agents handcuffed and shackled us again. As we boarded, all of us, including the kids, had to walk through a corridor of heavily armed CBP officers. There were already a bunch of people on the plane, handcuffed and shackled. We were about 60 in all. An ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, agency of the Department of Homeland Security] officer was on aircraft. He told us, “We will be flying to Costa Rica.” We were all very distressed. We said we were seeking political asylum, we had kids. We thought, “What’s happening to us?”[62]

CBP carried out expulsions to Costa Rica on two flights in late February 2025. The first, from San Diego on February 20, carried 135 people, including 65 children.[63] Sixty-five people, including 16 children, were on the second flight, which departed from Yuma, Arizona, in the morning of February 25.[64]

Each of the expulsion flights followed the same basic procedures, with some variation: CBP agents woke up families in the middle of the night, handcuffed and shackled adults—sometimes just the men; in other cases, depending on where they departed from, also some or all of the women—at the wrists, waist, and ankles, and transported them by bus or plane to San Diego or Yuma. Asked where they were going, many CBP agents did not respond, said they did not know, or named San Diego and Yuma as if they were the final destinations. Some people learned they were going to Costa Rica just before they boarded the plane to Costa Rica; others did not know until they were already on the plane. A few told Human Rights Watch they only heard they were being sent to Costa Rica just before they landed.

Anahit B., a 34-year-old woman from Armenia traveling with her two daughters, 7 and 2 years old, described her experience on the first expulsion flight:

On the evening of February 19, we were told to get ready to travel. We were taken to San Diego, to a big tent camp there. That was the worst day ever. The tent camp was very scary. Officers were shouting at the top of their lungs: “Shut up, shut up.” Children were crying. We thought we were there for an interview. Whenever we asked a question, the officers told us to shut up.

All the men were shackled, and we were all thrown onto a bus. The bus took us to a plane at a nearby cargo airport. We had no idea what was happening. The plane just took off with 135 on board. Whenever we asked questions, we were told to shut up.[65]

Baseem P., also on the first flight to Costa Rica, said:

We stayed in handcuffs and chains on the flight, even to go to the bathroom. My wife was not cuffed. One woman was cuffed because she had an argument with the officials but they took the cuffs off her before she boarded the plane. Before we arrived, they took off our cuffs and after that they would not allow us to use the bathroom.[66]

Horia S., 27, the woman who was handcuffed on that flight, told us:

When they started to handcuff and chain the men, not the women, at the hands, waist, and feet, I couldn’t believe it. I started telling the immigration guards that we did not kill anybody, that we were all human beings. I was very upset. They handcuffed me. I couldn’t breathe. They told me if I didn’t stop crying, they would take away my baby. They gave me a tablet they said was paracetamol, but it made me very sleepy and foggy for about five or six hours.[67]

Tanya P., a 33-year-old woman from Russia, described her expulsion on the second flight:

The buses brought us to a military base . . . all those huge, heavily armed military men with automatic rifles. My daughter was shaking from fear: “Momma, are they gonna shoot? Are they gonna kill us?” All the adults, even women, were shackled—right in front of the terrified kids. We were put on that military plane in shackles—and the shackles only got removed after landing. My wrists and ancles were rubbed raw. There were buses there—and they took us to another plane, a normal-looking civilian plane. There were lots of soldiers but also some photographers and cameramen filming us as we were being herded on that plane. It’s only when [we were] moving towards the plane that I heard from someone that we were being transferred to Costa Rica. . . . At least I knew the name of the country—some people really didn’t. A young woman was screaming that she would not go, that she’s alone with two kids and her husband is in the US—but the officers threatened her with shackles and forced her on the plane. I did not want to scare my daughter even more, so I did not resist.[68]

These accounts illustrate some differences between the two expulsion flights: on the first flight, CBP agents handcuffed and shackled only the men and one woman who was handcuffed but not shackled after she objected to the expulsion, while on the second flight, CBP agents handcuffed and shackled all adults, including women.

Children were very upset to see their parents in handcuffs and shackles on the way to the airport and on board the flight, people told us:

• “At 2 a.m., they cuffed my hands to my waist and shackled my legs. My daughter cried when she saw me like that. They transported us for 20 minutes to the San Diego camp,” said Elçin A., a 40-year-old man from Azerbaijan.[69]

• “When we were on the plane, the children were very upset to see their father in handcuffs, with chains on his legs and waist,” Khadeeja P. said.[70]

Some people told Human Rights Watch they and their families had been shuttled among various detention centers before their expulsion, adding to their sense of disorientation and, because many or all adults were handcuffed and shackled during each of these transfers, increasing children’s sense of insecurity.[71]

No Access to Asylum

I genuinely don’t understand—why did they hold us for such a long time if they pushed us out anyway? It just doesn’t make sense. When we were in detention, I thought we just had to push through it—they will eventually process us and get us released. But no. We never even had an interview. They never let me explain about my case, about the threats I faced.[72]
—Araz E., a 35-year-old Armenian woman who spent 29 days in an immigration holding cell

Nearly all of the 36 people Human Rights Watch interviewed said that US officials ignored their repeated attempts to ask for asylum. With only two exceptions, CBP officials gave them no opportunity for a screening interview before a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officer to assess their eligibility to apply for asylum, as required by US law.[73]

Among the many such accounts Human Rights Watch heard:

• Sasha M., a woman from Russia, said, “Despite multiple requests, US officers completely ignored our plea for asylum. We were never granted a credible fear [an asylum pre-screening] interview with an immigration officer, our documents were never reviewed, and we were held in detention for no clear reason, only to be forcibly transported [to Costa Rica].”[74]
• “I kept waiting for that ‘fear interview’—I knew I had to have it by law, so every day I was waiting. And ironically, when they put us on that bus I was so relieved—I thought, finally, we’re now going to have that interview, our case is very strong, the authorities will hear us out and we’ll be free. Instead, they . . . sent us to another country, without even any explanation,” said Grigoris D., a 35-year-old man from Armenia.[75]
• “No, we had no interview. The CBP officers kept saying, ‘There is a new president, so your only option is to sign voluntary deportation.’ We said we had been persecuted [in Russia],” Eduard G., a 26-year-old man from Russia, told Human Rights Watch.[76]
• “And to think that in San Ysidro the authorities told us we were just being moved to a detention center in San Diego and we were going to have our fear interviews there! Instead, they just shoved us on a plane, which landed in Costa Rica. It was all a lie,” said Maya M., a 45-year-old woman from Russia.[77]

As in Eduard’s account, instead of referring people for interviews with asylum officers, CBP agents pressured them to accept return to their home countries. He told us, “On two occasions Russian-speaking CBP officers tried to convince us [to return to Russia]. They said, ‘We will deport you anyway.’ I was stubborn, some of the others gave up and left. The whole time we were detained, there was a lot of pressure to accept voluntary deportation.”[78]

Nearly all of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch said CBP agents asked them questions about their route, their relationship to others they were travelling with, and in some cases why they left their home countries. CBP did not refer them for asylum interviews even when people said in response to these questions that they fled their home countries because of risks to their lives or safety or that they feared return.

For instance, Beyrouz H., a 39-year-old man from Iran, said that after he and his 10-year-old daughter crossed into Arizona on February 11, CBP agents took them to Yuma and questioned him:

There, they asked me about my daughter to verify that she was really my daughter. I think it was DHS or the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]. They were in civilian clothing. They also asked my daughter questions separately from me so she would verify that I was her real father. Several officers were there. They took my photo. They asked simple questions with one-word responses. They asked me my route to the United States and my travel dates, but I didn’t know the exact travel dates because I was facing a lot of pressure when I was traveling. They asked why I left, and I said because of my political activism. I didn’t receive any documents after this interview.[79]

Similarly, Kamran I., a 37-year-old man from Iran, said that one CBP officer spoke to him while he and his family were detained in Texas, and another officer spoke to him in San Diego, but they refused to hear his account of persecution in his home country. “They only wanted to know how I entered the US, what the route was, and who helped me. I kept saying we suffered religious persecution and were seeking asylum, but the officers did not want to listen,” he said, adding, “They did not want to know our story. They did not grant us an interview.”[80]

Two people told Human Rights Watch they spoke to an asylum officer but were each expelled before they received a written decision, as required by law,[81] and without the opportunity to have their cases reviewed by an immigration judge, another requirement under US law[82]:

• Marwan K., a 19-year-old man from Yemen, told Human Rights Watch he had an interview with a US asylum officer by phone. Five minutes after the interview was over, CBP agents told him the asylum officer had rejected his claim. “I asked to see a judge, but they said, no, it’s not allowed,” he recounted.[83]
• “At the end [of the interview], the officer said, ‘There is no more asylum in the United States,’” Nadia P., a 39-year-old woman from Russia traveling with her 15-month-old son, told Human Rights Watch, adding that the asylum officer said she would have a chance to explain her case to an immigration judge. Instead, US authorities expelled her to Costa Rica.[84]

By disregarding legal safeguards for asylum seekers, US authorities short-circuited the established process and offloaded people with plausible asylum claims.[85]

Established Deportation Procedures Ignored

None of the people interviewed by Human Rights Watch received, prior to their expulsion from the United States or immediately after their arrival in Costa Rica, any of the documents required to be issued in a formal “removal” (deportation) proceeding.[86] Instead, they were taken to an airfield with no explanation given until they were about to be put on a plane to Costa Rica. The account of Daniil N., the 36-year-old man from Russia, was typical of those we heard:

[W]e were taken to a US military airfield, loaded into a Hercules [military transport] plane and taken to Arizona. There we were put on a bus for prisoners, driven a couple of hundred meters straight to the steps of the plane, which was heading to Costa Rica. At the steps of the plane, we were told that a trial had already taken place in our cases and we were found guilty of violating the US border, so we would be deported to Costa Rica, from where we would be sent straight to our country of origin.[87]

CBP agents gave people who were expelled on the first flight, from San Diego on February 20, a one-paragraph notice printed on plain paper with no designation of the issuing agency and none of the other usual indicators of an official government document. In full, the notice said:

You are being transported from the United States to Costa Rica, under Presidential Proclamation 10888, Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion, as an alien whose entry to the United States has been suspended pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, as well as the powers of the President under the Constitution of the United States. The United States has arrangements with countries, including the country noted above, that allow for aliens to be transported there.

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The presidential proclamation[88] cited as the purported basis for expulsions to Costa Rica is not consistent with the asylum provision in US law, which guarantees the right to seek asylum to anyone arriving at the border regardless of their status or method of arrival,[89] and it does not reflect the United States’ international obligations, as discussed in a subsequent section of this report. Nor is it accurate to describe irregular entry by an asylum seeker as an “invasion.”[90]

Those expelled on the second flight, from Yuma on February 25, did not receive this notice and did not receive any other documents relating to their expulsion until April 8, when Costa Rican officials started to distribute US expedited removal orders and other deportation forms with dates indicating that these forms had been prepared before their expulsions:

• Texting us on April 8 with copies of these documents, Daniil N. wrote, “Not a word about political asylum. This is a fake. We have never seen this paper before. And everyone who arrived on the second flight to Costa Rica has [just received] it here.”[91]

• “Ten days ago, everybody [expelled on February 25] was issued documents from the US saying that we violated the immigration regime in the US and are banned from reentering for another five years. The document does not mention that we were asylum seekers. All 20 of us transported from Otay Mesa got the same documents,” Karina B., from Russia, said.[92]

The forms viewed by Human Rights Watch bore prints of people’s right index finger but not their signatures. The fingerprints appeared to be digitally generated, presumably from electronic records taken upon apprehension, rather than manually affixed to the document, raising questions about when US authorities actually prepared the forms and whether the recipients had a chance to read them before their fingerprints were added. Asked if he had affixed his fingerprint on any of the forms he received in April, Daniil N. replied that he had not:

I was fingerprinted when we pulled into Tecate. And at the Otay Mesa border crossing. But I never saw any documents that I was given to sign. I have never and would never voluntarily sign or fingerprint any form. Especially since I believe these fingerprints were printed on a printer.[93]

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When we asked Costa Rican authorities on May 12 when they received these forms, they did not directly answer the question, replying:

Regarding the questions: “We understand that on April 8, the Professional Migration Police began distributing notifications from the US federal government to individuals at CATEM. Did US authorities deliver these documents, related to the deportation of third-country nationals from the US, to Costa Rican authorities at the same time they arrived in Costa Rica in February? If not, when did the Costa Rican authorities receive them?”

In view of the above, regarding an alleged notification by the Professional Migration and Foreigners Police of documents from the government of the United States of America on April 8, 2025, it is indicated that what the Professional Migration Police did was to return passports and/or travel documents, such as the medical records of migrants deported from the United States of America, with the issuance of Resolution D.JUR-0135-04-2025-JM-ABM of April 15, 2025, published in the Official Gazette on April 21, 2025. The above applies to migrants who are in the special humanitarian category, since these documents were handed over while the “Assisted Voluntary Return” program was in progress or refugee status had been requested. The commitment of the General Directorate to receive migrants clearly had to exclude their irregular stay in the country, and their passports and/or travel documents had to be safeguarded, in accordance with the powers granted to the institution by the same law.[94]

Family Separation Through Expulsion

CBP separated at least two families during expulsions to Costa Rica. In one case, Hadi N., a 35-year-old man from Iran, was deported to Costa Rica while his wife remained in immigration detention in the United States. He told us:

At first I thought separation was a normal process. I said to myself, ‘Okay, no problem.’ Men are in one place, women are in another. But when the immigration police told me they were sending me to Costa Rica, when I asked where is my wife, first the police said, “I don’t know.” I kept asking them, “Where is my wife?” They took me to a room and spread me out, checking me all over my body. I was upset. Finally, the police said to me, “Your wife is going there too.” They said my wife would be here with me in Costa Rica. That was not true. She wasn’t in Costa Rica when I arrived. She is still in immigration detention in the United States.[95]

In another case, US authorities separated an extended family from Afghanistan, sending one woman to Panama, keeping her husband in the United States, and sending the woman’s sister, brother-in-law, and 14-month-old nephew to Costa Rica. And in a third case, CBP expelled a 10-year-old Iranian girl and her father to Costa Rica but kept the girl’s stepmother in detention in the United States.

Five women said they travelled to the United States with their children to join their husbands, each of whom has a pending US asylum case. Each of the women told us they had explained to CBP that their husbands were already in the United States seeking asylum but were promptly sent with their children to Costa Rica anyway. All were expelled without their husbands, who remained in the United States.[96] 
 

Arbitrary Detention in Costa Rica

People on each of the two expulsion flights arrived in Costa Rica to a crowd of journalists. Eduard G., a 26-year-old man from Russia, said, “There was a huge crowd of journalists waiting for that flight, filming and photographing everyone without permission, including kids. I hid my child in my arms and put on a medical mask I had with me. Later my aunt in Russia sent me a photo of me she had seen. She recognized me.”[97]

Costa Rican authorities transferred everybody by bus to the Temporary Migrant Reception Center (Centro de Atención Temporal de Migrantes, CATEM), a seven-to-eight-hour journey from the airport. “They brought buses to the airport and took us straight from the plane to the bus and then we traveled eight hours on a bus,” Baseem P., from Afghanistan, told Human Rights Watch.[98]

Most people interviewed by Human Rights Watch described the bus journey as much more comfortable than the flights and said their treatment by Costa Rican authorities upon their arrival in the country was far better than what they had faced at the hands of US authorities. Even so, Angie Cruickshank, the Costa Rican ombudswoman, said, “We thought they would be able to disembark from the plane, be taken to a place to eat, stretch, use the bathroom, but they were transferred immediately onto buses.” Many asked to be able to contact their relatives, but officials did not give them the time or the means of doing so before sending them to the center, she added.[99]

Most people expressed appreciation for the efforts made by the center’s staff to provide accommodation and food. But they said that the center was clearly intended for stays of just a few days.

Those held in the center were allowed from the moment of their arrival to use their mobile phone, but they have no access to Wi-Fi at the center and had to purchase data to contact the outside world, an expense that some told us they could not afford.

Deprived of Liberty for Two Months

The premises of what is now the migrant center, a former pencil factory,[100] were donated to the Costa Rican government by their owner, a subsidiary of Faber-Castell, under the express condition that they be used as a refuge for people in need and not as a place of detention.[101]

But as provided in the resolution that authorized their entry into Costa Rica, third-country nationals expelled from the United States were required to “remain . . . in a temporary reception center for migrants.”[102] In practice, they were not free to leave the center except for short periods, for specific purposes, and with police escorts:

• “We are not allowed to go outside the shelter. The police are still holding our passports and not giving them to us,” Khadeeja P. told Human Rights Watch in mid-March.[103]

• “I can’t go out” of the center, 19-year-old Marwan K., from Yemen, told us in early April.[104]

They remained deprived of their liberty until the week of April 21, when Costa Rican authorities gave all remaining third-country nationals special humanitarian status and confirmed that they could move freely within the country.

Costa Rican authorities “categorically rejected”[105] that the third-country nationals sent there in February were detained, suggesting instead that their freedom of movement was limited for their own protection.[106] In April, Omer Badilla, Costa Rica’s deputy minister of the interior and director of its Migration Directorate, told the New York Times they could leave the center to visit local shops, but only with a police escort.[107] Nonetheless, Minister of Interior Mario Zamora told reporters that one of the conditions of their visas was that they could not leave the center. He stated:

We have committed to receiving them in Costa Rica to guarantee their safe return to their country of origin. For that reason we don’t want them to fall into the hands of mafias or people traffickers who can extort these kinds of people who are visiting us, above all those that are children . . . .[108]

In response to a joint letter from human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Zamora and Badilla wrote:

In no way are we dealing with a deprivation of liberty . . . . The migrants who were received in Costa Rica due to their deportation from the United States of America were granted an exception by the General Directorate of Migration and Foreigners, which granted them special status that regularized their situation for a specific period of time due to their transit through Costa Rica. In view of the foregoing, it should be noted that they are not being held in custody or detained, since this would require them to have an irregular immigration status and an administrative decision justifying their deprivation of liberty, which is not the case.

. . . .

In order to protect migrants who were deported from the United States of America, this General Directorate considered it appropriate to authorize their entry into the national territory under transit conditions, with due control by the Professional Migration and Foreigners Police, in accordance with relevant national and international positive law on rights and humanitarian assistance.[109]

They reiterated these points in a letter sent to Human Rights Watch on May 15.[110]

In fact, the consistent accounts we heard from people in the center, official statements, and government documents establish conclusively that third-country nationals were deprived of their liberty until April 23:

• Until April 23, they were not free to leave the center on their own.[111]

• Their passports were held by authorities until that week.[112]

• Visits were not permitted: a man who attempted to see his detained relatives in March was escorted away from the center in handcuffs by guards, he, his relatives, and others at the center told Human Rights Watch.[113]

• A migration agency document viewed by Human Rights Watch notes six “departures without authorization,” presumably in reference to six people reported in news accounts as having escaped from the center.[114]

• Mario Zamora, the minister of interior, publicly stated that third-country nationals were not free to leave the center.[115]

• In an interview with La Nación for a story published on April 1, Badilla stated that people who applied for asylum could leave the center during the day and return at night. “I met with them personally, I said to them, ‘Do you want asylum? You can leave,’ but they said, ‘We’re not interested, we want to stay here.’”[116] Badilla did not specify whether those who did not apply for asylum were also free to leave the center.

• Asked about the six people who escaped the center for another news account also published on April 1, Badilla said that third-country nationals “are not detained here by force” but told La Nación that if the six were found, the police would bring them back to the center.[117]

• On April 23, announcing a new special humanitarian status for the 85 third-country nationals who remained in the center, Badilla said, “This means that these people have liberty of movement in the national territory.”[118]

Journalists and a few other human rights groups were allowed into the center during the two months that third-country nationals were deprived of their liberty, but Costa Rica’s Migration Directorate strictly controlled their visits. An April visit by three human rights groups was limited to two hours.[119] Human Rights Watch was granted much more extensive access on April 28, but only weeks after we initially sought access and five days after people held at the center were told they had liberty of movement.

A journalist who visited the center in early April, as part of a small group of reporters allowed entry for one hour, wrote:

Although the administration of Rodrigo Chaves Robles claims that it is not a jail, interviewees maintain that that is how it feels there, always under watch by police, surrounded by a perimeter fence, and without their passports, because the only document that says who they are and that links them to some country in Asia or Africa has been locked up since they landed in Costa Rica on February 20.[120]

An editorial in La Nación assessed the situation in similar terms: “They cannot work, they cannot leave, they are watched day and night, and they cannot speak freely with the press, as La Nación, AFP, and Telemundo have confirmed.”[121]

None of the third-country nationals has been charged with a crime, and Badilla told reporters that none had any security flags.[122] All third-country nationals held in the center had valid migration status at the time of their arrival and continue to be in valid status:

• Days prior to the February expulsions from the United States to Costa Rica, Costa Rica’s Migration Directorate (Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería) authorized the “exceptional entry” and “temporary stay” for an initial period of 30 days[123] of the 200 third-country nationals “for the sole purpose of continuing their journey to their countries of origin or elsewhere.”[124]

• On March 12, the Migration Directorate extended these permits for an additional 30 days.[125]

• On April 15, the Migration Directorate authorized the issuance of temporary immigration permits for humanitarian reasons to all third-country nationals remaining in the center.[126] Migration authorities began to issue these permits on April 23.

Costa Rican authorities have not suggested there is any other basis for depriving them of liberty; in fact, as Zamora and Badilla wrote in response to six human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, custody or detention “would require them to have an irregular immigration status and an administrative decision justifying their deprivation of liberty, which is not the case.”[127]

Accordingly, between their arrival in Costa Rica on February 20 or 25 and April 23, the day Costa Rican authorities issued people documents confirming their new status and began returning passports to those who wished to take them, they were deprived of liberty. This deprivation of liberty was likely unlawful and at the very least arbitrary.[128]

Inadequate Conditions for Children

The conditions here are extremely difficult for us, especially with a young child. We do not have access to proper food for our infant, and even for ourselves, there is no access to adequate and nutritious meals. My wife, who is breastfeeding, urgently needs nutritious food, but there are no available resources to meet this need. We also do not have access to air conditioning or cooling systems, and due to the intense heat, we have witnessed some women fainting.
—Baseem P., a 30-year-old man from Afghanistan, April 30, 2025  

Humidity is high in the area where the center is located—above 80 percent during the days Human Rights Watch visited—and parents said that during the first month in particular, children were often listless and did not eat enough. “The weather is very hot, the children have no appetite and we don't have access to anything to cool them down,” Khadeeja P., a 30-year-old Afghan woman, told Human Rights Watch. The heat and humidity also made it difficult for her 14-month-old to sleep, she said: “There are so many mosquitoes and he can’t sleep. The children need a mosquito net that we don’t have access to.”[129]

Some of the parents interviewed also told Human Rights Watch that because of the heat and high humidity their children developed persistent skin rashes. At least three of the children we saw at the center still had large rashes under their arms and on the chest.

The center provides no education or other structured activities for children and few recreational opportunities. “Children have not been studying in school for over two months [at the center],” said Tanya P., from Russia.[130] Asked what activities were available for children, Daniil N., also from Russia, replied, “They started showing cartoons on the projector for the children.”[131] These cartoons are shown on weekdays only, other parents told Human Rights Watch.[132]

Three lawmakers on the Legislative Assembly’s Human Rights Commission who visited the center heard from parents that “many children are going through an emotionally and psychologically difficult situation as a result of the events they have had to confront.”[133]

Education is a right of every child in Costa Rica regardless of migration status,[134] and under Costa Rican law preschool, primary, and secondary education are obligatory.[135]

In response to our question on children’s lack of access to education at the center, Costa Rican authorities wrote:

With regard to the points raised, it should be noted that there are currently 25 minors at CATEM-SUR, 21 of whom are of school age according to Costa Rican law. In view of this, the necessary arrangements are being made with the Ministry of Public Education to assess the integration of this population into the national education system, or to present an education proposal for these minors, which does not depend exclusively on this General Directorate and with the understanding that the parents of these individuals have not voluntarily decided to apply for asylum, which would allow them to put down roots in our country, as their desire is not to remain in the country.

To date, none of the minors have been enrolled in educational centers in the country. This is primarily due to the fact that the deadlines established by the Ministry of Public Education for the regular and special enrollment process had already expired when the children and adolescents entered the country. It should be noted that the Costa Rican school calendar establishes specific periods for these procedures, which are carried out prior to the start of the school year and follow a national plan in terms of coverage, infrastructure, and human resources. Despite this, as mentioned, we are coordinating with the relevant authority on this matter.

It is important to note that CATEM-SUR has spaces for the use and enjoyment of minors, which are equipped with the support of UNICEF (Safe Spaces), where recreational and training activities are provided for minors. Likewise, during the various interviews conducted with migrant families with minors, they have stated that they do not wish to settle permanently in Costa Rica, making it difficult to offer an educational option that meets their needs. This cannot be overlooked, since the people currently staying at CATEM-SUR under special humanitarian status have not wanted to integrate into our country by applying for refugee status. It should be noted that special humanitarian status was granted for a period of three months, although it may be extended for an equal period.

Migrants who have already applied for refugee status may choose to enroll in national educational institutions.[136]

Uncertain Status

For nearly two months, President Chaves and other senior officials repeatedly stated that all or nearly all of the third-country nationals expelled to Costa Rica would return to their home countries in short order. Announcing the agreement with the United States, President Chaves said, “Two hundred will come, we will treat them well, and they’ll go.”[137] On another occasion, he estimated that those transferred under the agreement would remain in Costa Rica at most for “three or four weeks.”[138]

In line with these comments, the “exceptional entry” and “temporary stay”[139] authorized for the 200 third-country nationals were “for the sole purpose of continuing their journey to their countries of origin or elsewhere.”[140]

This temporary status was a source of anxiety, people interviewed by Human Rights Watch consistently said. For example:

• “We are now in legal limbo, unable to return or move forward,” Sasha M., from Russia, told Human Rights Watch in early March.[141]
• “I don’t know what Costa Rica has in store for us refugees. What will be the fate of those who remain here?” asked Leila M., a 23-year-old Iranian woman, in early March.[142]
• “We are really worried about our future and our little one,” said Baseem P., from Afghanistan, in mid-March.[143]
• “Every day I’m going to the immigration police [in the center], but they don’t give me any news,” Marwan K., the 19-year-old from Yemen, told us at the beginning of April.[144] By the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit at the end of the month, he had left the center and hoped to depart from Costa Rica.

Costa Rica’s National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture heard similar comments when it visited the center in March,[145] and three lawmakers who visited the center in April said that people described “constant episodes of anxiety, stress, and uncertainty.”[146]

Costa Rican authorities did little in the first two months to dispel people’s sense of insecurity.

Asked by journalists on February 20 if third-country nationals expelled from the United States could apply for asylum in Costa Rica, Omer Badilla, deputy minister of the interior, told the news outlet CR Hoy, “That possibility exists.”[147] But only one of the people Human Rights Watch interviewed heard anything about this option during their first few weeks in the center.

That person told Human Rights Watch that an official with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency that is facilitating returns to home countries, told her that she should speak to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) about lodging an asylum claim. The IOM staff did not tell her how to contact UNHCR and did not offer to connect her to that agency, she added.[148] Even if IOM had provided her with a way to reach UNHCR, the information they gave her was not accurate: the Costa Rican government, not UNHCR, receives and evaluates asylum claims in Costa Rica.[149]

Costa Rican officials did not explicitly tell people detained in the center that they could seek asylum in the country until late March. At that point, they advised people they had four options: as before, return to home countries or travel to another country, and in addition, asylum or special humanitarian status in Costa Rica. They did not then explain what special humanitarian status was, people told Human Rights Watch. Costa Rican authorities disputed these accounts, writing that “in fact [third-country nationals] were informed and the resolutions in this regard were notified with the assistance of interpreters, explaining the scope of the resolution that granted migrants special protection based on this humanitarian status.”[150]

Badilla met with people at the center and said that Costa Rica would welcome them and help them integrate if they sought and received asylum in the country. As they understood it, the option of seeking asylum included an offer of support: housing, help finding jobs, and language lessons. After Badilla’s appearance at the center, about 16 people applied for asylum and others seriously considered doing so, they told Human Rights Watch.

But when they asked migration officers about support for asylum seekers, they received the response that there was none. As a result, some of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch expressed doubt that Costa Rica would be a realistic option for them. For example:

• Daniil N. and his wife, Sasha, were among those who seriously considered applying for asylum after Badilla spoke with them and promised support, but they then were very discouraged to hear from migration officers in the center that the initiatives Badilla described would not be available to them. “We cannot find jobs without being able to speak Spanish. Even if we spoke Spanish, we don’t know enough about life in the country. Without jobs, we cannot afford a place to live,” said Daniil N.[151]

• “We were told we would get a 3-month permit and we could apply for asylum in Costa Rica. I have no connection with Costa Rica. I don’t speak Spanish. We heard that some of the Chinese [who were expelled from the US] opted to stay in Costa Rica, but they only got work authorization but no other support.”[152]

Zamora and Badilla did not directly answer Human Rights Watch’s question about about the reported contradiction between Badilla’s statements and those of the migration officers at the center, saying only:

[S]ince the arrival of migrants deported from the United States of America to Costa Rica, they have been provided with detailed and reliable information about their immigration status in our country. During this process, migrants have been offered four alternatives:

a) return to their country of origin;

b) return to a third country;

c) apply for refugee status in Costa Rica

d) apply for special humanitarian status in our country.[153]

They repeated this statement later in their reply, adding that this information “has been provided from the moment the migrants entered our country.”[154]

These discussions, and every other communication from Costa Rican and other officials, were hampered by the lack of interpreters, a shortcoming that people highlighted to Human Rights Watch.[155] Similarly, a report by three members of the Legislative Assembly’s Human Rights Commission observed that the lack of clear information in people’s own languages was a chief concern for those in the center. When the lawmakers spoke to people held in the center at the end of March, “they indicated that, up until now, they have not been given clear, precise information about the procedures for applying for refugee status in Costa Rica.”[156]

Costa Rican authorities disputed these accounts of inadequate translation.[157]

On April 21, people in the center learned the Costa Rican government had given them a new status: they would be issued permits authorizing their temporary stay for 90 days, extendable once for another 90 days. At the end of this time, they would need to leave the country or regularize their stay (such as by applying for asylum).

The permit costs $55 in fees per person, meaning that a family of three would need to pay a total of $165 for the documents. This permit does not allow people to work.[158] The ombudswoman’s office criticized the fees and restrictions on work.[159] The Ministry of Finance, which processes these fees, can waive them for humanitarian reasons.[160]

Third-country nationals can continue to stay at the center for those 90 days and will continue to receive meals and basic health services, as long as they comply with the center’s rules. Daniil N., the man from Russia, said that he and others were free to leave the center from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.[161]

Badilla described the temporary status as a means of avoiding pressure to return to home countries. “That’s why we wanted to extend this humanitarian status so they would feel more at ease, that they would have freedom of movement in Costa Rica, while we find a solution to the situation they find themselves in,” Badilla said.[162]

As of May 7, 30 people had requested asylum in Costa Rica, the Migration Directorate told Human Rights Watch.[163]

Raising, Then Dashing, Hopes of Resettlement

From the start, the options offered to people included travel to a third country. In meetings with Costa Rican migration officials in February and March, many people listed Canada and Australia as their preferences. If Costa Rican authorities intended their reference to third countries to be limited to countries to which people already had visas or which they could enter without visas, they did not clearly convey that limitation through the translation apps they used to communicate with anybody who did not speak Spanish or English. The Migration Directorate disputed this finding, telling Human Rights Watch:

It has always been expressly stated that this decision does not depend in any way on the Government of Costa Rica, so as not to raise false expectations among these migrants. Although returning to a third country has been mentioned as an option, complete, clear, and transparent information is always provided, indicating that it will be a decision made by that possible third country.[164]

Five or six weeks after their arrival in Costa Rica, some people told Human Rights Watch they doubted whether the Costa Rican government’s references to third countries were realistic or sincere. “They offer a third country, but it seems to be untrue,” Tanya P. told Human Rights Watch in mid-April. She added, “Now they [say they] have sent a request to Canada. But we are not sure whether they have sent this request . . . .”[165]

In late April, the Costa Rican government said that it had asked Canada to accept some or all of those who remained in the center. Badilla told La Nación that Canada was the only country in which people held in the center had expressed interest.[166]

But migration officials were at the same time privately telling people that Canada was off the table:

• “The Costa Rican government asked if we could go to Canada. Thirty-five to forty people said yes. Then we were told Canada rejected us. But we never saw a paper that said this, so we are still waiting for a decision from Canada,” said Timur M., a 37-year-old man from Turkey. He added, “After that, they told us we could go to a third country if there was one we could travel to without a visa.”[167]

• “About three weeks ago, in the immigration agents’ office, we were told that the Costa Rican government would negotiate sending us to third countries, such as Canada, for example. That the minister himself would do it. They didn't specify which minister. But this Monday [April 21], they told us that we could only get to third countries if we had a visa or passport, and that we’d better forget about those options altogether. When we asked what the outcome of the negotiations was, the officers said they hadn’t received an answer and they take this as a negative response,” Daniil N. said.[168]

• Leyla H., a 30-year-old woman from Turkey, was one of the people who told Costa Rican officials in February that she and her two children, ages 5 and 8, wanted to go to Canada. “But a week ago, they told us they checked with Canada but Canada said nothing about giving us asylum,” she told Human Rights Watch at the end of April.[169]

The Costa Rican government has also asked Spain to accept some third-country nationals expelled from the United States, the Migration Directorate told Human Rights Watch.[170] As of May 15, none had been relocated to a third country, the directorate said.[171]

Direct and Indirect Pressure to Return to Risk of Harm

For most of the first month after people arrived in Costa Rica, migration agents told them their only options were to return to their home countries or otherwise leave Costa Rica. They were not free to leave the center, other than for short periods under police escort, until the week of April 21. Even after the Costa Rican government confirmed in late March that they could apply for asylum in Costa Rica and offered them humanitarian permits in late April, they have remained profoundly uncertain about whether they can rebuild their lives in a safe place and plan for their futures, whether in Costa Rica or in another country.

As of May 7, 97 third-country nationals expelled from the United States to Costa Rica had returned to their home countries—Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Ghana, Jordan, India, Iran, Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam—the Migration Directorate told Human Rights Watch.[172] These decisions followed their detention in the United States, summary expulsion, weeks in detention in Costa Rica, and shifting statements from Costa Rican authorities about what their options were, circumstances that call into question whether their choices were truly voluntary.

For example:

• Two families, one with a 15-month-old baby and the other with an 18-month-old, decided to return to Russia in February because they could not face the prospect of detention in Costa Rica, they told others at the center.[173]

• Eduard G. told Human Rights Watch his wife and her child, whom he helped raise from a very young age, returned to Russia in late April because his wife could no longer stand the uncertainty, the hardships they had faced in the United States and Costa Rica, and the fact that the child has had no access to education for months. He added that return to Russia was out of the question for him because of persecution he said he would face there.[174]

• Nadia P. told us she returned to Russia in late April for the same reasons.[175]

By April 24, 85 people remained in the center, including 31 children, according to the Migration Directorate. Most of those who remained were from Russia, Armenia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.[176]

The Migration Directorate disputed that returns to home countries were less than voluntary, writing:

All repatriations carried out to date have been completely voluntary, without any coercion. Costa Rica maintains a deep respect for the principle of “non-refoulement” and under no circumstances does it carry out repatriations to countries where the physical integrity or lives of the repatriated persons may be at risk.[177] 
 

Other Third-Country Transfer Arrangements

Panama accepted 299 third-country nationals from the United States between February 12 and 15, 2025, expulsions that were similar to those the United States carried out to Costa Rica: the US government detained people in harsh conditions, prevented them from contacting family and lawyers, and either lied to them or failed to tell them what was happening to them, including when they were handcuffed and shackled, and marched onto planes bound for Panama.[178]

On March 13, Rwanda accepted one man from Iraq. A leaked April 22 US State Department cable noted, “This successful relocation—and Rwanda's subsequent agreement to accept additional third-country nationals (TCNs)—proved the concept for developing a new removal program to relocate TCNs from the United States to Rwanda.”[179] The cable adds, “Rwanda also agreed to accept another ten TCNs of various nationalities.”[180] In late April, a Rwandan official confirmed that the country is “open to others,” referring to the possibility of receiving further third-country nationals from the United States.[181]

Between March and April, El Salvador accepted 252 Venezuelan nationals who are held in the Center for Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT), a mega prison.[182] The transfers to El Salvador included 238 people who were expelled in apparent defiance of a US federal court order,[183] including 137 expelled under the purported authority of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.[184] Human Rights Watch has found that the Venezuelans sent to El Salvador have been subjected to enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention.[185] The transfer of Venezuelans to CECOT in El Salvador also violates the principle of nonrefoulement under international law given widely documented conditions in El Salvador’s penitentiary system.[186] On May 1, a federal district court judge ruled that gang activities, which the Trump administration had claimed amounted to an “invasion,” could not be the basis of invoking the Alien Enemies Act.[187]

In May, the Trump administration was apparently on the cusp of carrying out a mass expulsion to Libya,[188] an arrangement reported by the Wall Street Journal in early April,[189] but a federal court intervened to halt the transfers, at least temporarily.[190] According to court filings, officials gave detainees held in a center in Texas oral notice and in at least one case paperwork to sign notifying them of their pending expulsion to Libya.[191] More than a dozen people from the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Mexico were reportedly transported by bus to the location of a military plane where they waited for hours before a judge blocked the deportations.[192] The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) and its foreign ministry issued statements denying reports of a deal with the Trump administration. Its rivals, the Eastern-based Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) and its affiliated foreign ministry also issued statements refuting claims of a deal with the United States.[193] Human Rights Watch has extensively documented inhumane conditions and serious abuses in migrant detention centers and prisons in Libya.[194] 

One court filing also relates that US authorities verbally informed a detainee from Laos that he would be imminently removed to Saudi Arabia on a military flight.[195] Human Rights Watch has documented Saudi Arabia’s deplorable rights record for years,[196] including detention conditions migrants have experienced, such as torture, beatings, serious allegations of deaths in custody, and extreme overcrowding,[197] as well as past cases of torture and ill-treatment of Saudi detainees.[198] 

The bilateral agreements underpinning these transfers are not public. The arrangement with El Salvador reportedly requires the US government to pay El Salvador $20,000 per person per year,[199] and estimates of the total cost are as high as $15 million.[200] The State Department cable describing the Rwanda arrangement said that the United States government paid the Rwandan government $100,000 for the first year.[201]

Guatemala has also agreed to accept third-country nationals but is not known to have done so as of early May.[202] In April, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US government was also pursuing transfer arrangements with other countries, including Benin, Eswatini, Moldova, Mongolia, and Kosovo.[203] In early May, CBS News reported that the United States was also reaching out to Angola and Equatorial Guinea regarding their willingness to take third-country nationals from the United States.[204]

Prior instances of offshore detention and processing by the United States and other countries have been traumatizing for people transferred and otherwise rife with abuse. The United States held large numbers of Cubans and Haitians at its naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in abysmal conditions in the 1980s and 1990s.[205] Australia’s offloading of refugees and asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea and Nauru left people in anguish and overwhelming despair. Children sent to Nauru with their families showed particularly alarming signs of trauma.[206]
 

Human Rights Obligations of Costa Rica and the United States

Both Costa Rica and the United States have committed in law to guarantee the right to seek asylum. International law and legislation in each country also prohibit refoulement, sending people to countries where they would face persecution, torture, or other serious harm. In addition, international law prohibits removals from a territory without considering the specifics of each individual’s situation and giving them a genuine opportunity to seek international protection.

Both countries have a long history of providing safe haven to refugees, though each has also tried to curtail access to asylum in recent years.

In Costa Rica, the government of President Rodrigo Chaves Robles moved to restrict access to asylum in 2022.[207] The courts invalidated some of these measures, and the government withdrew others in 2024.[208]

The United States enacted legislation in 1980, 1990, and 1998 to implement two international agreements,[209] the Refugee Protocol and the Convention against Torture, each of which prohibits refoulement and provides for other protections.[210]

But every administration over the past 45 years has also attempted to reduce access to asylum.

Under the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, for example, the United States interdicted Haitians and Cubans who attempted to reach the United States by boat, holding many at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detaining many Cubans indefinitely, and summarily returning many Haitians.[211] The Reagan administration also routinely detained people fleeing civil unrest in El Salvador and Guatemala and systematically denied nearly all asylum claims for people from these countries.[212]

The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and that of President Bill Clinton increasingly expanded deportable offenses, most notably under two major pieces of legislation signed into law by President Clinton in 1996.[213] Legislation signed by President George W. Bush in 2005 narrowed eligibility for asylum and added new requirements to provide corroborating evidence for asylum claims, resulting in widely differing approaches by individual immigration judges and the federal circuits.[214]

The administration of President Barack Obama responded to increasing numbers of unaccompanied migrant children by prioritizing their deportation and encouraging Mexico and Central American countries to prevent them from reaching the United States.[215] The George W. Bush and Obama administrations also made extensive use of family detention, holding some families for months.[216]

President Trump’s first administration featured numerous restrictions on access to asylum, including forcible family separations at the border, the “Remain in Mexico” program, and summary expulsions on the pretext of protecting public health during the Covid-19 pandemic.[217]

And the administration of President Joe Biden attempted to foreclose access to asylum for people who entered the United States irregularly, did not use the CBP One phone app to register for an asylum interview, or did not apply for asylum in a country of transit.[218]

Even in light of this track record of restrictive practices, the two administrations of President Donald Trump are remarkable for their arbitrary and callous disregard of due process, the right to seek asylum, and human dignity.[219]
 

Acknowledgements

This report was researched and written by Michael Garcia Bochenek, senior counsel to the Children’s Rights Division; it was also researched and edited by Bill Frelick, director of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Division, and Tanya Lokshina, associate director of the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. Bassam Khawaja, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Division, contributed to the “Other Third-Country Transfer Arrangements” section.

Bede Sheppard, deputy director of the Children’s Rights Division; Juan Pappier, deputy director of the Americas Division; Joseph Saunders, deputy program director; and Chris Albin-Lackey, senior legal adviser, edited the report. Vicki B. Gaubeca, associate director, US immigration and border policy, US Program, and Skye Wheeler, senior researcher, Women’s Rights Division, also reviewed the report.

Joya Fadel, Children’s Rights Division senior associate; Travis Carr, publications officer; Fitzroy Hepkins, senior administrative manager, and José Martínez, administrative officer, produced the report. Delphine Starr and Juan Pappier reviewed the Spanish translation.

Human Rights Watch appreciates the access granted by the Ministry of the Interior to visit the Temporary Migrant Reception Center (Centro de Atención Temporal de Migrantes, CATEM) in Corredores canton, Puntarenas province, and the efforts made by the center’s staff to facilitate our visit.

Finally, we would like to thank the many people who were willing to share with us their experiences of summary expulsion from the United States to Costa Rica.