Illegal immigration in Costa Rica

Without any evidence, Costa Ricans cite illegal immigration from Nicaragua as straining there country's resources.

When I lived there, I observed that many Costa Ricans harbor a lot of racism. When a caucasian- American marries someone, they call it "purifying the race." When a black person from the U.S. claims to be from the U.S., they accuse that person of lying and actually being from Limón (a provence of mostly people of Jamaican descent). They still hate the Jamaicans that moved there a century ago, and they blame Nicaraguans for taking jobs and increasing crime. Not too many Ticos are picking bananas and coffee these days. Who else is going to pick the world's richest coffee? And if more Nicaraguans were committing street crimes as many Ticos claim, why do Nicas make up less than 6% of the population?

I'm not saying that I don't understand why people fear an influx of cheap immigrant labor- afterall, in some cases it keeps wages down for all and can be used as a tool to keep unions out of the workplace. However, the underlying racism and gross exaggerations in this case just cannot be ignored. Illegal immigration really needs to be examined more carefully before people allow all of these assumptions to be confused with fact.