2023-10-23 19:15:48
Costa Rica stands out among the five countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with the highest number of refugee applications last year.
The country was positioned behind the United States, Germany and France, according to a report published this Monday by the international entity. Fifth place was obtained by Mexico.
According to the report, Costa Rica received 130,000 applications for international protection in 2022; 10,000 more than those processed by Mexico in the same period. Both nations, however, have kept the demand for asylum on the rise in recent years in Central and South America.
In the national case, 92% of last year’s applicants came from Nicaragua, while in Mexico there was a notable increase in applications from Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans.
The United States received 730,000 applications in 2022 (compared to 190,000 the previous year), 40% coming from Cuba and Venezuela, but also largely from Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Colombia.
Over the past year, a total of two million new asylum requests were made in the nations in question, “the highest number ever recorded”, almost double that of the previous year and much more than in 2015-2016, when The conflict in Syria generated a wave of exiles to Europe.
As a whole, the main countries of origin were Venezuela, with 221,000 refugee seekers, Cuba with 180,000, Afghanistan with 170,000 and Nicaragua with 165,000.
The organization’s migration indicators also point to an “unprecedented” reach of permanent immigrants, with more than six million.
To this record figure we must add the nearly 4.7 million displaced Ukrainians counted in June 2023 in the 38 member countries of the organization.
“Labour shortage”
Of the 6.1 million new permanent immigrants, the United States welcomed 1.05 million in 2022.
Last year, more than one in three countries recorded flows “not seen in at least 15 years”, among them Spain (471,000), France (301,000) or Belgium (122,000), while others such as the United Kingdom (521,000) and Canada (473,000) broke all records, according to data compiled in the document.
Despite these unprecedented numbers, “the majority of immigration is regulated, controlled,” starting with that of workers, Jean-Christophe Dumont, who heads the migration division of the OECD, told AFP.
The number of international student admissions also reached a record level, approaching two million, almost double the previous year.
This global dynamic is “linked to the fact that many OECD countries suffer from labor shortages,” the organization explained in its report.
Furthermore, these flows are accompanied “by an improvement in the conditions of insertion into the labor market,” he added.
For example, the employment rate of immigrants “reached the highest level ever observed in all OECD countries,” according to the report.
The document indicates that “regulated immigration of foreign workers” accounts for 21% of total flows, and currently represents the same proportion as immigrants for humanitarian reasons.
This percentage is all the more preponderant considering that the increase in family immigration, which continues to be the main category with 40% of entries, is mainly due “to families accompanying migrant workers,” observed the OECD.
Last year, according to the organization’s data, almost 80% of immigrants were “active”, with 70% employed and less than 8% unemployed.
All this data does not include temporary workers.
The OECD noted that preliminary data for 2023 already point to “a new increase” in all indicators.
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