SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — The vice president of Costa Rica’s Congress said Thursday that the U.S. embassy told her the U.S. had revoked her visa because of alleged contacts with the Chinese Communist Party.
Vanessa Castro of the opposition Social Christian Unity Party, speaking in the Legislative Assembly, denied such ties and said that media outlets allied with President Rodrigo Chaves knew her U.S. visa had been revoked before she did.
Castro was one of several Costa Rican figures who came forward Wednesday to say their U.S. visas had been cancelled, including the president of the Congress, who belongs to the opposition National Liberation Party, and two justices on the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber who have issued rulings that Chaves disliked.
“I went and I checked and they told me in the embassy that they had received information that, among other things, I had connections with members of the Chinese Communist Party,” Castro said. “You all know me, I have a pretty public life, can you imagine I have a relationship with members of the Chinese Communist Party?”
She also noted that she had supported U.S.-Costa Rica initiatives like a regional free trade agreement and joint patrols against drug traffickers.
Castro said media outlets that support Chaves’ administration showed up at her office to ask about the visa before she had even been notified.
The U.S. embassy said its policy is to not comment on individual visa cases.
Chaves played up the visa cancellations Wednesday, saying that “it seemed extremely embarrassing to him that” such important political figures as Castro and Congress President Rodrigo Arias should be unable to travel to the United States.
In April, former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, Rodrigo Arias’ brother, said the U.S. had cancelled his visa without explanation. He speculated that Washington may not have liked his comments on the war in Ukraine, the U.S. trade conflict with China, or the situation in Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made his first overseas trip as the top U.S. diplomat to Central America in February and curbing China’s influence in the region was one of the trip’s central talking points.
