Costa Rica’s La Nación, one of the country’s best-known news outlets, said the United States revoked visas for several members of its board of directors, setting off fresh concern among press freedom groups and political opposition about whether immigration rules are being used to target critics. In a statement that ran on the newspaper’s front page on Sunday, the board said the affected executives first heard about the revocations through reports in pro-government media, rather than through official notice.
La Nación said the United States offered no explanation for the visa cancellations. The newspaper also argued that the move is unusual, saying it was “unprecedented in Costa Rica’s recent history for visas to be revoked from members of the board of a general-interest and independent newspaper,” even while acknowledging that the United States has the authority to set the terms for entry into its territory.
The visa revocations arrived amid political tensions in Costa Rica between the press and the country’s outgoing administration. La Nación has long been a thorn for President Rodrigo Chaves, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, and Chaves has repeatedly criticized the outlet since it published allegations of sexual harassment during his 2022 presidential campaign.
Costa Rican opposition lawmakers and press freedom organizations framed the U.S. action as part of a broader pattern. They urged Costa Rican and U.S. authorities to explain what happened, warning that withholding transparent information would be unacceptable. The statement from the organizations said that if the decision is tied to the board members’ critical stance toward Chaves’s government, it would be “yet another troubling signal for our democratic system,” and that failing to provide information would “constitute an unacceptable form of complicity.”
Journalist Mauricio Herrera, a former Costa Rican communications minister, went further, telling The Associated Press that he believed the U.S. decision was connected to the Costa Rican government. Herrera said “there is no doubt that the cancellation of visas for its board of directors is in response to a request from the Costa Rican government,” adding that “The sanction seeks to intimidate those who dare to dissent and exercise their freedom of expression.”
The AP reported that similar visa cancellations have affected other prominent figures in Costa Rica as well. Last year, the United States revoked the visa of Nobel laureate and former Costa Rican President Óscar Arias, an outspoken critic of Trump, and it also revoked the visa of Arias’s brother, Rodrigo Arias, who said he believed the U.S. decision was made at Chaves’s request. In recent months, the AP said, opposition lawmakers including Francisco Nicolás and independent Cynthia Córdoba, as well as Constitutional Court Judge Fernando Cruz, also faced visa cancellations.
Chaves, who has worked closely with the Trump administration on deportations involving third-country nationals and on extraditing suspected drug traffickers to the United States, is scheduled to leave office on Friday. The transfer of power will occur as President-elect Laura Fernández prepares to take over the presidency.