17 Comments
Feb 5, 2021Liked by Alejandro Zúñiga

I agree that tourists have no legal standing when it comes to policies. However, they do contribute to the economy through marchamo, property taxes, sales taxes, general purchases of goods and services. And there are those, like myself, who have applied for residency but still need to do border runs in order to be able to drive while waiting for approval. In my case, I have been waiting 17 months and counting. I would like the authorities to just give some consideration to:

1. Not all of us can afford to pay several hundred dollars for the airfare

2. The health risk for us to go to countries with high infection rates, which affects everyone in CR

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Feb 5, 2021Liked by Alejandro Zúñiga

Agree with all above. It is an inconvenience with the land borders closed, but the real victims of this situation are those who have applied and paid for residency, have complete and clean applications, eager to participate in the economy and are waiting..waiting... waiting...over 15 months for approval. Applications are sitting on a desk in immigration somewhere, you would think they would be rubber stamped APPROVED to get the process and expats in play fast.

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Feb 5, 2021Liked by Alejandro Zúñiga

The last paragraph makes a false conclusion. If perpetual tourists are beneficial to the economy (which I'm sure they are, now more than ever), and you wanted to keep having the cash flowing in, reopening land borders is not necessary. The automatic extension of visas, as it was done for the past year, would be just fine.

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I have no issue with Costs Rica enforcing it’s tourist visas. But I do wish MOPT would get on the same page as immigration when it comes to foreign drivers licenses for those who have legally filed for residency. If they aren’t going to allow you to get a CR drivers license until the residency process is completed, which is understandable, they could at least honor valid foreign drivers licenses until that process has been completed.

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I don't think Costa Rica owes us anything and no one expects extensions to go on forever. I just wrote a blog post from the perspective of a perpetual tourist, if anyone is interested:https://nomaddesignhouse.com/2021/02/03/why-costa-ricas-perpetual-tourists-are-heartbroken/

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I will be very curious to hear your feedback on this article. Are you going to publish it in TT as well?

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