Court orders Costa Rican government to release Asian migrants deported by Trump

The majority of the Constitutional Court's justices found the government violated the migrants' rights by not giving them access to counsel or enough information about their status.

Costa Rica’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday ordered the government of Rodrigo Chaves to release Asian migrants deported by the Trump administration who have been held in a temporary shelter in the south of the Central American country since February.

The majority vote (4-3) of the justices found that the Costa Rican government violated the migrants’ rights by failing to provide them with “timely and sufficient information” about their immigration status or give them access to legal counsel. “Nor was free contact with the media permitted, nor was there any information from the outset about the possibility of requesting asylum,” the constitutional court said in a statement.

The judges gave the Costa Rican government 15 days to release the deported migrants and ordered it to determine their immigration status “individually” and based on the law, according to the statement.

In February, the Donald Trump administration sent 200 Asian migrants to Costa Rica on two deportation flights, including nearly 100 children. The deportees came from countries such as China, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Russia, and Uzbekistan. More than 70 were minors.

The agreement between the two countries was reached as Costa Rica feared that President Donald Trump would retaliate if it refused to accept the migrants, according to statements made to the press by the president and the foreign minister.