Costa Rica News – A Cuban man has now been “trapped” in Costa Rica’s Juan Santamaria International Airport for 5 days, according to his lawyer that is trying to get him out.
Yorvanky Perez de Pina, who has been living in Costa Rica ever since very early 2012, landed at the San Jose airport last Thursday after taking a flight from Havana. Yorvanky had been visiting his mother who was very sick, but upon exiting the plane and going through customs he was denied entry into Costa Rica, as stated by his attorney Eduardo Flores.
The man has both a temporary refugee identification card as well as a work permit, both that have expired. Because of this the Costa Rican authorities declined to recognize his current status as a refugee, that he previously asked for in January 2012 at the time he arrived for the very first time in Costa Rica.
His lawyer stated that the Cuban had not started the process to achieve residency in spite of the fact he married a Tica in the month of April 2012 as well as owns and operates a produce shop with her in San Jose.
Kind of seems odd to me that a person that was granted refugee status in January of 2012, which last a certain amount of time then all of a sudden gets married a little over 90 days after getting that status. Red flag?
Last Friday the attorney submitted a habeas corpus writ geared towards obtaining a release of his client. The court ordered that the authorities needed to provide his client with both food and facilities for him to maintain his personal hygiene. There are also to avoid deporting him until the situation is remedied.
Before the court order was issued on Friday, Perez was scheduled to be deported to Cuba. This was not done as the refugee smeared excrement all over his body. This act prevented the Costa Rican authorities from putting him on the flight back to Cuba. Guess no one wanted to sit next to a person covered in poo.
His lawyer was unable to actually meet with the Cuban until this past Monday.
