The General Directorate of Migration in Costa Rica will be renting a new building near the current headquarters in La Uruca with the purpose of giving service to the increasing number of people requesting refugee status in the country, the majority of them Nicaraguan natives.

According to recent information released by Migration authorities, since April close to 8 thousand asylum claims have been filed by Nicaraguans and over 15,000 more have been given appointments to file their requests. The lines at the main offices of Migration in La Uruca where such that they were forced to open a call center service to facilitate the attention and the process of requesting appointments.

The new temporary office will open doors the second week of August, according to information by news daily, La Nacion, and require the hiring of at least 60 employees to attend the large demand; these employees will be paid by the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, organization that along with the International Organization of Migration have already contributed over $200,000.00 to the Costa Rican government to handle what could soon be a migratory crisis. Some of the funds have already been used in the opening of two shelters in the country.

Currently Migration is handling an average of 200 refugee applications, and UNHCR is providing the support to increase this capacity to at least 500 applications a day. Each application takes in average 11 months to be processed, according to Raquel Vargas, director of Migration; during this time the applicants can remain in the country. Vargas has also commented that at least 80% of the applicants already lived in the country and are now asking for asylum claiming that they cannot return to the country due to the current crisis and rising insecurity.