SAN JOSÉ — Costa Rica announced on March 26, 2026, it would accept up to 25 migrants deported from the United States per week under a new agreement. The Costa Rican government signed the non-binding migration pact on Monday during a visit by U.S. special envoy Kristi Noem.

The agreement allows the U.S. government to transfer foreign nationals who are not Costa Rican citizens to Costa Rica. Under the pact, Costa Rica may accept or reject proposed transfers of those foreign nationals.

"Costa Rica is prepared to see this flow of people," said Mario Zamora Cordero, Costa Rica's Public Security Minister, in a video statement on Thursday. The government said the deportees will be processed under Costa Rica's migration laws with a special migratory status.

"We are very proud to have partners like President (Rodrigo Chaves) and Costa Rica, who are working to ensure that people who are in our country illegally have the opportunity to return to their countries of origin," said Kristi Noem, U.S. special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, on Monday.

The government said Costa Rica will avoid returning people to countries where they might face risk of persecution. Zamora Cordero said the government would work with the United States to return migrants to their countries of origin and with the United Nations International Organization for Migration to house deportees in Costa Rica. He did not specify where or for how long the new deportees would be held in Costa Rica.

In 2025, Costa Rica received 200 deportees from Russia, China, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan. Half of those deportees were minors. Those deportees had their passports seized and were detained for months in a rural detention facility near the Panama border.

In June 2025, the Costa Rican Supreme Court ordered the release of those detained deportees. Many of those deportees were later granted temporary permits to stay in Costa Rica.

Countries that have agreed to receive third-country migrants from the United States include South Sudan, Honduras, Rwanda, Guyana, Dominica, and St. Kitts and Nevis. According to a February report by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Trump administration spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own.

In March 2026, Kristi Noem was fired from her position as Secretary of Homeland Security. Noem has traveled through Latin America, with recent stops in Guyana and Ecuador.