Cuban granted refugee status in Costa Rica

Costa Rica is well-known for its stunning beaches and fantastic scenery so the last place that any visitor would want to be is stuck at the airport. This is however exactly what happened to one Cuban named José Angel Roque.

Roque originally flew into Costa Rica from Cuba on December 4th 2008 with a fake Salvadoran passport and was immediately refused entry to the country. Officials then sought to have him deported back to Cuba before relatives of Roque residing in Costa Rica intervened and requested a refugee status for him. Since then Roque has been living in Juan Santamaria International Airport under the custody of immigration officials.

The story has striking resemblances to multi award winning Tom Hanks film ‘the Terminal’ whereby due to immigration restriction, Hanks is made to reside in JFK airport. Whilst the story of Roque might not have led to a romance with Catherine Zeta-Jones as the Terminal does, he still had to live in the airport for the past 53 days with very basic commodities. Roque had been sleeping in a bed made up in the corner of the terminal and was dependent on plane food for survival.

Following Roque’s appeal for refugee status the case was sent to immigration officials who decided in early January that Roque’s reason of claiming refugee status for ‘fear of being persecuted’ if sent back to Cuba was unsubstantiated. An appeal was then filed following this decision and the case was brought before the Security Minister who decided to grant Roque asylum on 26th January. The verdict means that Roque is finally allowed into Costa Rica following after almost two months of awkward living at Costa Rica’s main airport.

Upon becoming a free man, José Angel Roque is set to take a job at his cousins’ pizzeria in Corando.

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Filed under: Costa Rica News on January 27th, 2009