In the New World Taking Shape, We’re All on Our Own

This essay is part of “The New World Disorder,” a series exploring the disintegration of the postwar international system and how countries are adjusting as America steps aside.

Each month, tens of thousands of tourists arriving from the United States descend over the green mountains of Costa Rica to touch down at Juan Santamaría International Airport outside San José. They shuffle through immigration and then past images of sloths hawking 5G SIM cards, toucans selling rum distilled with renewable energy and someone doing yoga at sunset. Costa Rica is the happiest country in Latin America, a sign at baggage claim tells them. “Pure life,” the unofficial national motto goes: “Pura vida!”

Then, every week or so, another kind of flight lands, carrying men, women and sometimes children deported from the United States. Some arrive with their wrists and ankles in restraints. Many didn’t know where they were going until they boarded the plane. They aren’t here for the toucans or the yoga. They are shuttled to hotels, where they face a few options, none of them necessarily good: Go back to the place you left, find another way to leave, or stay — which, for many, means no family, no job and no idea what to do next.

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