125 Ticos This Past Year Detained In The US For Being Illegal

Some 300 Costa Ricans have been deported in the last five years for attempting to enter the United States illegally. The U.S. Border Patrol confirms that 125 Costa Ricans have been detained this past year alone.

The detainees are normally held at the Port Isabel ICE Detention Center in Los Fresons, Texas.

Along with the Ticos are also Nicaraguan nationals like Mirna Moreno, who told a Telenoticias reporter, that she he in the centre for more than five months after being detained near the Matamoros and Reynosa in Mexico.

She is one of 1.500 detainees in that prison, whose main problem is communicating with the embassies of their countries.

In the prison there are two Costa Ricans, one has almost four months waiting to be deported.

Telenoticias, in a coordination with prison officials spoke to one, Randall Bermúdez Hernández, almost four months waiting his deportation.

The report says that, altough it was previously agreed to enter cameras into the prison, authorities only allowed a voice taped conversation.

Bermúdez says he works at the prison's kitchen for us$3 a day, while his wife and child, who are from Buenos Aires de Puntarenas, live in North Carolina.

This is the second time Bermúdez would be deported. A third would be Federal crime.

Telenoticias say it spoke to other Costa Rican detainees but did not release names to protect their identity.

At the prison, detainees wearing blue are in minimum security, while orange are repeat offenders and a greater security risk, red is for maximum security.