The General Directorate of Migration in Costa Rica announced that as of this Wednesday, June 18 it will make available the phone number 1311 to offer appointments for refugee applications.

The call center service will be available from Monday through Sunday from 7 a.m. through 10 p.m. and to access it calls must be made through a Kolbi line at a cost of $3 per minute. The caller can make all necessary appointments by indicating the names of the applicants.

“With this telephone service the institution is granting more security and protection to the applicants, who will no longer need to go to the Migration offices on Monday to request the appointment, now they can make the appointment any day of the week by just calling 1311”, explained Raquel Vargas, General Director of Migration.

Migration informed that between last Sunday and Monday they processed a total of 3,243 appointments for refugee applications, most of them from Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

In the short term, the institution will also implement a digital app for the benefit of all users.

Migration authorities expect that with this new option the lines at the Migration offices in La Uruca will decrease drastically since the number of requests in the past weeks have continued to grow as a result of the crisis affecting Nicaragua.

Vargas, however, explained in a previous press conference that the majority of the applications were rejected since the applicants do not gather the necessary requirements to qualify for refugee status in Costa Rica.