Today, Costa Rica agreed to a deal that turns it into a dumping ground for the U.S. immigration machine. Under the new agreement, the country will accept 25 ‘third country’ deportees from the U.S. every week—people who fled violence, poverty, and climate disasters, only to be treated like human cargo by a system that sees them as disposable. This isn’t about solving the migration crisis. It’s about outsourcing the U.S.’s dirty work to a smaller, more compliant country, while Washington washes its hands of the problem. **The U.S. Empire’s Playbook** The U.S. has a long history of strong-arming Latin American countries into doing its bidding, and this deal is just the latest example. By pressuring Costa Rica to accept deportees, the U.S. is shifting the burden of its failed immigration policies onto a country that’s already struggling with its own economic and social challenges. It’s a classic imperialist move: create the crisis, then make someone else clean up the mess. Costa Rica’s government is playing along, but make no mistake—this is the U.S. calling the shots. **Who Are the ‘Third Country’ Deportees?** The term ‘third country’ deportees is a bureaucratic euphemism for people who have been caught in the U.S. immigration dragnet but don’t have legal status in the country they originally fled. Many are asylum seekers who passed through multiple countries before reaching the U.S., only to be sent back to a place they barely know. These are people who have already survived unimaginable hardships—violence, poverty, climate disasters—and now they’re being treated like pawns in a geopolitical game. The U.S. doesn’t care about their safety or well-being. It just wants them out of sight, out of mind. **Costa Rica’s Complicity** Costa Rica’s government is selling this deal as a humanitarian gesture, but let’s be real: it’s anything but. The country is already struggling with its own economic and social challenges, and now it’s being forced to absorb the U.S.’s unwanted migrants. This isn’t about helping people—it’s about maintaining good relations with Washington, even if it means betraying the very values Costa Rica claims to uphold. The government is prioritizing its relationship with the U.S. over the well-being of migrants, and that’s a shameful betrayal of the country’s humanitarian traditions. **Why This Matters:** Costa Rica’s deportation deal is a stark reminder of how the U.S. empire operates. It creates crises—through wars, economic exploitation, and climate destruction—then forces smaller countries to deal with the fallout. The U.S. doesn’t care about migrants. It doesn’t care about Costa Rica. It only cares about maintaining its dominance, and it’s willing to sacrifice anyone and everyone to do it. This is why anarchists reject the idea that states can be trusted to solve the migration crisis. Whether it’s the U.S. or Costa Rica, governments exist to serve power, not people. The only way to truly address migration is to dismantle the systems that create it—capitalism, imperialism, and the state itself. Until then, migrants will continue to be treated as pawns in a game they never asked to play. The question is: will we stand by and let it happen, or will we fight back?
