By Laura Gutierrez of Immigration Help Costa Rica Until 2018, the immigration (residency) process was relatively straightforward. Even though the DGME (Immigration) mandate was to process correctly prepared and submitted applications in 90 days, they went past that deadline. Still, my application approvals (and that of other competent service providers) averaged 4 to 7 months. Then came the cri...

By Laura Gutierrez of Immigration Help Costa Rica Elections in the home countries of the U.S., Canada, and E.U. (and other countries) have been painfully divisive affairs these past decades as the social engineers behind the curtain pull on the levers of influence. As such, many of us are tempted to avoid the subject. We are either preaching to the choir or engaged in hostile exchanges with tho...

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rodolfo Solano, presented the US Ambassador to Costa Rica, Sharon Day with the award of the “Juan Mora Fernandez National Order in the level of Great Cross of Silver Plate” in honor of the conclusion of her diplomatic mission in Costa Rica. The ceremony was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the presence of President Carlos Alvarado. Chancellor Solano e...

President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, exercised his right to veto a bill and said No once again to the practice of trawling. Alvarado gave a total veto to the bill, he explained that the analysis carried out to this date have not provided sufficient scientific elements and technical studies to guarantee the sustainability of the technique described in the bill. “For this reason and exercis...

The practice of trawling in Costa Rica has been a topic of discussion for several years, and since 2013 the Constitutional Chamber had forbidden the renovation or emission of new trawling permits due to the environmental damages this practice causes. There are currently no valid licenses for trawling. However, the topic was brought back to life this past few days when 28 members of Congress a...

Different Unions in Costa Rica have announced they will be protests in different areas of the country starting at 8 a.m. this Monday, October 19. This is part of what has been called a “national strike”, a movement that is trying to pressure the government to go back in their plan of creating more taxes, they are also protesting against the initiative of eliminating salary incentives for two ye...

The US Embassy in Costa Rica has the following message for US Citizens in Costa Rica that wish to submit their vote for the upcoming elections in the USA: If you plan to vote in the November 2020 election it is important to ACT NOW! Don’t wait, return your voted ballot right away! Remember U.S. embassies and consulates are not polling places; same-day in-person voting is not available outside t...

The Government of Costa Rica presented this Thursday to the Legislative Assembly the proposal (Plan to overcome the fiscal impact of the pandemic) to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund for a new loan of $1.750 Billion. “We need to maintain economic stability and activate employment to improve the situation in the country generated by COVID-19. If we do not act, the risk is in the hi...

Over 5,800 Americans gave up their citizenship in the first half of 2020, compared to 2,072 Americans who renounced their citizenship in ALL of 2019. How many of them are heading to Costa Rica? Why did they decide to leave? CNN, Newsweek, NY Times and Fortune Magazine have all reported recently that Americans seem to be leaving the US in droves. Many are permanently giving up their citizenship,...

(Photo: Archive) Back on May 16 the Costa Rican Government announced its decision to limit the entry of foreign cargo drivers to the country with the purpose of preventing borders from eventually becoming an area of transmission of Covid-19. Before this Presidential decree Costa Rica was testing all cargo drivers for Covid-19 before entering the country, situation that was causing delays with ...

Back on 2018 the Constitution Court in Costa Rica had pronounced itself on same sex marriage in the country and domestic partnership between same sex couples declaring unconstitutional the articles that forbidden same sex marriage, the Court also adhered to the advisory opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which stated that same sex couples should be recognized and guaranteed. Th...

Costa Rica will become the 38th member state of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the formal accession agreement will be signed in the upcoming days. “We are delighted to welcome Costa Rica to the OECD family at a time when multilateralism is more important than ever,” the group’s secretary-general, Angel Gurria, said in a statement. Costa Rica will be the firs...

In August 2018, Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court voted to legalize gay marriage, making Costa Rica the first country in Central America to recognize the right of same sex couples to marry. The ruling is supposed to take effect in ten days on May 26th, a deadline which brought members of the National Liberation Party (PLN) into a brief fist fight on Tuesday. Enrique Sanchez, Costa Rica’s first ...

The Government of the United States of America made official, through the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), that Costa Rica has been removed from the list the countries over which the Office maintains surveillance regarding the protection of intellectual property rights. This is stated in the Office’s Special 301 Report, which the United States issues every year to assess re...

The Costa Rican government announced this Friday a plan to offer a benefit of 200 thousand colones, approximately $347.00 USD, a month to families affected financially by the crisis caused by Covid-19, this includes people that have been laid off or have had their income reduced. Part of the funds will come from an extraordinary budget, reassigning funds, and by maintaining the fuel price in m...

Controversy arises in Costa Rica as information was released last Friday in relation to an executive decree (41.996-MP-Mideplan) signed by President Carlos Alvarado October 2019 which was officially published February 17, 2020 regarding the creation of the Presidential Unit of Data Analysis (UPAD), which apparently has been operating for over a year. Article 7 of this decree establishes that pu...

President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, confirmed his decision of renouncing the right to receiving the ex-Presidents’ pension after he leaves office. By law, in Costa Rica, the Presidents have the right to receive their pension once they leave office, the amount is of an approximate 4 million colones (close to $7,000 USD) a month. “On May 9. 2022, I will present my letter to the Direction...

President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado and the Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, signed this week the "technical norm for the therapeutic interruption of pregnancy" for cases where the health or life of the pregnant women is in danger, as a guideline and in support of what Article 121 of the Criminal Code states. The Ministry of Health elaborated the text of this technical norm which was sent...

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) informed that Costa Rica received the approval of the seventeenth committee required to finalize the process of joining this organization: the Investment Committee. With this, there are just five pending approvals, necessary to reach the ambitious goal by May 2020. The approval was achieved after completing an exhaustive evaluation o...

The Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) granted Costa Rica a loan of $550 million to support the construction, equipment and start of operations of the Fast Passenger Train for the Great Metropolitan Area. The total cost of the project is estimated on $1,297 million, the balance would come from private companies through public-private alliance, the government will carry out ...

The administration of President Carlos Alvarado lost another important piece with the resignation of the Minister of Treasury, Rocío Aguilar Aguilar announced her decision this Wednesday after being notified that the Comptroller General of the Republic had recommended to the President her suspension for 30 days due to her decision to pay the bills owed by the Central Government to its debtors a...

“What bloody business has the USA to do with the Costa Rican immigration policies on border crossings?” - Posted reaction to a recent article published in TCRS (The Costa Rica Star) The answer: Plenty. The Bigger Picture: The issue is not just about border runners seeking to stay under the radar as Perpetual Tourists, or those needing to keep their foreign driver's licenses valid. Those con...

The Minister of Labor, Steven Nuñez, resigned this Friday Sept 27th after the traffic officer that escorted him to Limon died in a car accident in the early hours of that same day. Nuñez apparently requested the escort last minute since he was running behind to attend a meeting in the province of Limon, since traffic is regulated in a segment of Route 32, the Minister made the request for a tra...

Former Vice President Joe Biden may soon find himself between a rock and a hard place. For some unknown reason he is still the Democratic front runner to receive his party’s nomination for president next year. Every time 76-year-old Sleepy Joe opens his mouth he creates more problems for himself. So why are the Democrats sticking with Biden? Just as sure as Cat-5 Hurricane Dorian tore up the no...

In the first bill With 40 votes in favor and 15 against deputies approved the bill to regulate strikes in Costa Rica. Some of the most important points of this project are: -It defines which are considered "essential services", where strikes are NOT allowed. -Salaries are suspended on the first day of any strike. If the strike is declared legal by a court of law, then the employer will ha...

(Photo: Archive) The National Association of Educators (ANDE) and the Association of High-School Teachers (APSE) called on their members to join a new strike movement this Monday, September 2 and Wednesday, September 3 to protest the projects that are currently being discussed in congress regarding public employment, the right to strike in essential services, and those projects that would affec...

Two familiar faces from the past will be reappearing on the national political-media scene – former Trump administration Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Sanders, 37, was signed by Fox News as a paid contributor of political commentary while McCabe was signed by CNN also as a paid contributor of political commentary. Squeaky clean Sanders s...

Last week mainstream media did all they could to raise fears of a coming recession using the DOW Jones stock market’s nose-dive of 800 points when no evidence of an impending recession exists. Economic indicators show the U.S. economy remains strong -- then why all the chatter about a fake recession? The stock market bounced back amid the ongoing China trade deal and yet the media talking heads...

After watching these 20-plus Democratic presidential candidates attempt to be regular folks -- at the Iowa State Fair -- it’s fair to assume none of these candidates have what it will take to unseat President Donald Trump in 2020. It was hysterical watching news reports coming out of the state fair showing the likes of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) walking around holding a deep fried corn d...

After eight days of striking and after several long meetings between representatives of the CCSS labor union and the Government, an agreement was reached to put an end to the strike that caused the cancellation of 82,872 scheduled appointments and more than 1,400 surgeries and 18,000 procedures . The Executive Director of CCSS, Roman Macaya, celebrated the agreement that put an end to the strik...

The fabric holding together the United States of America is literally coming apart at the seams. As of Aug. 4, 2019 -- 251 mass shootings have occurred this year -- resulting in the deaths of 280 people and wounding another 752 innocent souls, according to Wikipedia. Although there is no widely accepted definition of a mass shooting, it is generally thought to encompass incidents involving mult...

As of noon Friday, the Social Security Service (CCSS) had been forced to suspend 57,536 patient appointments after almost a week of strike which affected over 39% of public health appointments. Close to 20% of the employees are taking part of the strike, which mainly include nurses, support personnel, and personnel in the area of health technologies; also 578 general medical doctors and 408 spe...

Say what you want about the second Democratic debate held July 30-31 in Detroit, Michigan, but there were no winners. All these 20 candidates for president did was bark at each other like a pack of wild dogs. Clearly both CNN and the Democratic National Committee were losers in this debate. The questions asked of the candidates lacked substance. There were no questions about President Donald Tr...

The U.S. Congress is on recess until Sept. 9, but rest assured President Donald Trump will not be taking six weeks off. Last week the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-to-4 decision gave the go ahead to the Trump Administration to transfer $2.5-billion in Pentagon military defense spending to continue construction of a barrier wall along the Mexico/U.S. southern border. These funds for President Trump’...

Former FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday before the U.S. House Judiciary and Intelligence committees qualified as high political drama -- broadcast live to the nation -- but there was no new information, no revelations or exploding bombshells. For the Democrats and other anti-Trump forces it was a waste of time. For the Republicans it was a waste of time. Mueller’s 400...

The U.S. Congress isn’t getting much done these days. They are too busy looking at their dang iPhones and tweeting out national policy to get much of anything done for real American citizens. Sure-as-shootin’ our President Donald Trump does a lot tweeting himself, but that’s different. He actually gets things done while Congress does not and they won’t because of the looming Nov. 3, 2020 nation...

Let’s give a round of rowdy cheers and whistles to the Washington Democrats who have seriously alienated Independent voters with their screaming rants about a new Socialist America with free healthcare, free college and a $15/hour minimum wage to flip those burgers. Decades ago the Independent voter represented a small number while the two-party political system in the United States of America ...

President Carlos Alvarado, alongside the Minister for Environment and Energy, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez and the Minister of Health, Daniel Salas, signed into law the reform of the Law for the Integral Management of Waste. This Law enacts the prohibition of the import into national territory, the commercialization and the delivery of polyethylene containers, better known as styrofoam, in any commerci...

The Trump Show made quite a splash on the 4th of July as the United States of America celebrated its 243rd birthday of independence from England. Braking from tradition the nontraditional and controversial President Donald Trump took over this year’s festivity in Washington amid much criticism from the Democrats, the candidates running for president and even the City Council of the District of Col...

It would defy all the laws of gravity for President Donald Trump to lose the White House next year. Everything is up – economy is the best in decades, employment for real Americans is at record highs, the stock market almost hit 27,000 for the first time and the U.S. military -- that protects real American citizens -- is getting stronger every day. Our president is 100-percent responsible for thes...