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All your schizo problems can be managed with a hefty dose of Zyprexa — as long as you don’t mind getting diabetes from taking it, but then you could get in on the $700,000,000 pay-out to the victims of this drug from hell. Many of the drugs big pharma makes the most profits on are the cause of restless leg syndrome — a typical case of the treatment for one ailment causing another money making niche for other drugs. You didn’t think they want you to get well, did you? Well people don’t make them any money. The more drugs you take, the sicker you will get, making the bloated cash cow very content.
I have a friend who had the exact same convictions on his record from 30 years ago and he got his residency. Unless you’ve been moving tons of dopes and are a threat to society, these petty crimes are not taken into account — what they do take into account is what’s happened since and if your record is clean, you won’t be penalized for your past transgressions. If the conviction had been in the last ten years, thta’s a different story.
I was told that such crimes and misdemeanors committed more than 10 years ago had no effect on residency, unless it was a sex crimes.
At least CR puts its corrupt presidents and politicians in prison. We just let ours run free and then give them some cushy private sector job when their term expires!
I’d worry more about the political instability of the US before I worried about Costa Rica. Who knows what evil lurks for us now that Saddam has been hanged. Petty crime is everywhere so if you take precautions you should be fine — Vegas isn’t exactly the safest city in the world either. As long as there is a Nicaragua the US will stick their fingers in it. As for newspaper reports, if I read the US newspapers and all the gory stories of murders here, I’d think the US is a pretty dangerous place (which it is!).
Hey, Judy — I still have 3.5 feet of snow from last week’s storm, plus another 38 inches from this week’s storm! I’m up in the foothills and can’t wait to get out of here for Costa Rica. The residency requirements have changed regarding the rentista status, but it’s still $600 a month for pensionado status. The two categories are completely different and independent. You are not allowed to work in Costa Rica and yes, many people start their own business but you cannot work in the business — a Tico has to do that, but you can take the profits. An apartment can cost anywhere from $150 – $1500 depending on where you are. The outlying areas are cheaper than the city or beach towns. I have a friend who lives in San Ramon and has a darling tico house on a coffee plantation that she pays $220 a month for. When are you leaving for CR? Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough for me — I’m sitting in my office in a polar fleece with gloves on! Brrrrrrrrrr.
You local police station will do a criminal computer search on you after which they will write a letter stating you are not a felon or have a criminal arrest record. It took us about 10 minutes to get this done. However, I would check with the CR consulate and ask THEM what they want you to do with the fingerprint card — submit it to the FBI or submit it to them to have Interpol run a check on you. I was fingerprinted in Costa Rica for my residency. Those fingerprints are then submitted to Interpol for a worldwide background check. The rules have changed in the last couple of months so maybe they are now requiring your fingerprints be submitted to the consulate here rather than getting them in Costa Rica. If they want you to get the clearance, you must be fingerprinted on the form which is then submitted to the FBI – Department of Justice in Virginia. send them $18.00 in a certified check or money order (they absolutely will not accept a personal check) and they will do a nationwide background check on you and if it is clear the back of the card will be stamped “has no criminal record.”
Your local police report must be notarized by the police department, by someone other than the person who signed the letter. They should be able to do it all right there and in fifteen minutes or less. Cost varies.
All it takes to wind up on welfare or homeless in this country is to lose your job, have an unexpected illness or accident, have a spouse or child die, have your insurance company refuse to pay your claims, or have your home foreclosed on. I certainly don’t condone the people who are collecting welfare and producing a litter of children that I ultimately pay to raise, but there are more and more working poor in this country — both parents working and still not having enough to get by — and with the dissolution of the middle class any one of us is only one paycheck away from a food bank. My main objection to the “rah-rah-siss-boom-bah America is so wonderful” is that it neglected to even mention our systemic problems of underfed and uninsured children and adults in the land of plenty. I’ve never gone to bed hungry, so the thought of 40 million children having to do it infuriates me. A hungry child is a hungry child whether it be in Costa Rica, Darfur, Somalia, Detroit or L.A. I do what I can to support our food banks in my state. I donate to fund-raising for Darfur, but more importantly, I have compassion for those people who for the most part wouldn’t choose to be poor, hungry, homeless, and persecuted
Your local police department can fingerprint you on a form designed for that purpose. Did you have the police report notarized? That must be done first. Then and only then do you take it to the Ssecretary of State’s office for authentication — they will affix a form to your report that says the person who notarized it was authorized to do so. After that it goes to the CR consulate who will again authenticate that everyone who certified and authenticated your report was authorized to do so.
OUr local news did a story recently on the working poor, the military poor, and the middle class poor in our communities. I was shocked, but the numbers speak for themselves. The number of middle class people going to a food bank in our area has tripled in the last two years. Foreclosures have skyrocketed because of those wonderful 0% interest loans, ARMs, and high credit card (usurious) interest rates. Two people working at $50,000+ a year jobs each can barely get by if they have a mortgage, car payment, and two kids in school. That wonderful list of facts also neglected to mention how many millions (is it up to 45,000,000 now) who have no medical insurance, but if you can barely afford to eat how are you expected to pay a $500 – 1500 a month insurance premium. Gadzooks. What is wrong with this country?
Not forty thousand — forty million children — who go to bed hungry! Hey, you guys, don’t shoot the messenger. It was on the news the other night. There should be NO child that goes hungry if that litany of other facts is correct, eh? Thanks for the back-up info Aguirrewar; I figured I’d have to dig it out of my archives today if you hadn’t posted it.
FACTS??? Those 75 numbered nuggets sounded like they came out of a propaganda spin machine. And sorry to burst your bubble, but I know people who have all the trappings of middle class but have not enough money to buy adequate food for their children. They are not lazy parents or parents with drug habits. These are hard-working parents who struggle with the corporate greed that takes all their money to provide housing and transportation. Sorry you don’t believe it, but maybe you need to get in touch with the reality that is America now because it’s happening even in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods, including the one in which I live — parents going to food banks to supplement what they can afford to buy.
Get in touch with the CR consulate nearest you and ask them about their procedure for getting things authenticated, stamped, and translated. You can’t do this without them, and it’s best to make contact with someone there early in the process so they can walk you through it. Glad I could help you. It’s a daunting process, to be sure, but worth every gray hair and headache!
All of your documents must be authenticated by the Costa Rica consulate in California either in Los Angeles or San Francisco. But first, you must get those documents and your son cannot help you with that from Costa Rica. The rules have changed in the last year and now it is imperative that you start this residency process in the States, otherwise you will be spending a fortune sending things back and forth FedEx (that is what the consulate requires) and you will have to have someone act on your behalf in the States, and if you’ve read Butch’s account of gathering and certifying these documents and having multiple people serve as attorneys (power of attorney), it was very complicated. Your son can help you get fingerprinted in Costa Rica, take you to the Embassy, and help you get an appointment at immigration, but first you must get your documents, have them certified, authenticated, translated, and stamped by the CR consulate. This is a process not for the faint-hearted.
