On the Migrant Trail in Costa Rica

New video explores a busy but overlooked human-smuggling route for migrants from overseas

By Todd Bensman and Bryan Griffith on July 20, 2021

In a new video, the Center for Immigration Studies examines the conveyor belt carrying migrants from countries beyond Central America and Mexico – including from terrorist-plagued countries – to the U.S. border. A CIS expert documents smugglers as they move their cargo from northern Costa Rica across the border to Nicaragua, in one stage on an unimpeded migrant trail that is largely ignored by both the U.S. and local governments.

The video follows up on the Center’s prior four-part blog series on "extra-continental" alien smuggling: "A United Nations of Mass Illegal Immigration".

Todd Bensman, the Center’s senior national security fellow, said “Individuals around the globe have heard the U.S. border is open and are taking advantage of this opportunity to enter the country. Migrants from outside Central America and Mexico, including extra-continentals from terrorism-wracked countries like the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, Yemen, and Pakistan, are headed to our border. So many people are cashing in on this industry – smugglers, drivers, restaurant owners, to name a few – that new towns are popping up on the borders between Central American countries to benefit from the non-stop flow of migrants.”