200,000 Ticos illegally in the U.S?

[truthteller]

That's what La Nacion reported today.
http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2005/marzo/13/pais1.html

I am shocked that number of Ticos are living in the U.S illegally. I always thought the majority of Costa Ricans that went to the U.S came back.

Maybe I am living in a shell or are things that bad in CR?

 

[WildBill]

That sounds awfully high, 5% of the population? I would be surprised if it was even 100k in the US illegally.

 

[-Slim-]

no no, way too high.....

 

[wolfie_cr]

If according to US sources there are 70k living legally I don't see why would it be hard to have twice that amount in illegals.


One of the people mentioned in the article says something like "you can pay your bills and still spend money to buy a TV and have money left" , its obvious the reason why they are there and why they are not eager to come back. Most of them have very limited education/training and the jobs that exist here for that % of the population may pay at best 200 dollars/month. They can work as hard as they want here they will never raise above poverty levels. In the US if they work like crazy they can very easily achieve a nice economic level which surpases by far what they could have done here.

 

[kingbill]

That doesn't sound that outrageous, they could be counting people born in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> to Costa Rican parents, and I heard somewhere that there are more Puerto Ricans in <st1:State w:st="on">New York</st1:State> than <st1lace w:st="on">Puerto Rico</st1lace>.

 

[WildBill]

Puerto Rico and Costa Rica are two different things. If a Puerto Rican wants to move to New York he buys a plane ticket and gets on the plane. When he arrives he is a resident of New York if he so chooses. A Tico has to do quite a bit more obviously.

I just highly doubt the 200k number. Knowing the attitudes of most Ticos I can't see that many of them going to those lengths to do **** jobs. Most Ticos will refuse to work in fields or anything that requires hard labor. Just look at CR, the people that do that sort of work are Nicas. Mexicans and others from Central America don't have such attitude towards that sort of work.

As for how easy life is, my sister in law moved to Houston with just a tourist visa, so she is now illegal. She got a job the second day she looked earning $8/hour working in a restaurant. That has allowed her to buy a used car, a whole new wardrobe, a computer, and now today I found out she even got approved for a cell phone. In the morning three times a week she goes to a local school and gets free classes in English. In two months I am amazed at how much she has learned. Yet in our world our Congresspeople have protected us from her because she can't get a drivers license. Yeah that really worked. Back in Mexico she was a graphic designer with a university degree making about one third as much money as she does tending a salad bar in a suburban Houston restaurant where they looked for a person for six months offering the same $8/hour to no avail.

 

[wolfie_cr]

The ticos living in USA didn't arrive there "overnight" or "last year", this is something that has obviously been happening for a LONG LONG time, in that story one guy was saying that he got to the US when he was a kid and now that he is 57 and STILL illegal he is thinking about moving back to CR ?

"Most Ticos will refuse to work in fields or anything that requires hard labor." = EXCEPT the Ticos that are already doing that to start with and let me tell you that there are a BUNCH of those, its no surprise that most of the illegal CR'ans that live in the US come from Perez Zeledon which is the center of an agricultural zone. They actually upgrade their job in a heartbeat as they go from field labor to do construction work.

 

[WHALE]

That doesn't sound that outrageous, they could be counting people born in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> to Costa Rican parents, and I heard somewhere that there are more Puerto Ricans in <st1:State w:st="on">New York</st1:State> than <st1lace w:st="on">Puerto Rico</st1lace>.

Puerto Rican in the States or in Puerto Rico are part of USA anyway so, what's your point?

 

[kingbill]

Puerto Rican in the States or in Puerto Rico are part of USA anyway so, what's your point?

Too Clarify they could be counting 2nd and 3rd generation Costa ricans in the USA.