The deportations of Nicaraguans arriving in the United States have increased in parallel to the high migratory flow that Nicaragua has experienced since 2018, but which has worsened since a year ago. Between 2019 and 2021, 146,648 deportees are calculated, according to official data collected by the Nicaraguan American Alliance for Human Rights (NAHRA).
“We see it for two reasons: first, because the Nicaraguans who are coming are requesting asylum for reasons of political persecution and they do not come with their cases prepared, they do not have their statements prepared, their forms written, nor their evidence translated into English,” notes Astrid Montealegre, supervising attorney for NAHRA.
Likewise, he points out that another factor is the belief that the United States has a policy of receiving Nicaraguans due to the sociopolitical crisis. However, “that does not exist, nor does there exist asylum due to economic conditions,” asserts the lawyer.
The latest report from the Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior reveals that only in the first seven days of October 2022, 132 returnees from the US arrived in the country.
The deportation process includes the cases of Nicaraguans who are deported from detention centers and also those who were in the country and after the trial could not verify that they were at risk when they returned to Nicaragua.
“When the deportation order is issued, this person cannot return to the United States for a period of ten years. Even if he has another opportunity, through an immigration law to emigrate to the US, he will have a ten-year sentence before being able to opt for that benefit, ”adds the defender.
Political asylum delayed after pandemic
Migration to the US has increased since 2019, a year after the civic protests arose in Nicaragua that were strongly repressed by the Ortega government. Then, in 2021 with the intensification of the repression, the economic and human rights crisis, the number of Nicaraguans multiplied.
In 2022 alone, the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports a cumulative 126,294 nationals apprehended, 2.5 times more than those detained in the same period in 2021.
However, while the wave of migrants grows, the number of approved asylums is scarce. Between 2018 and 2021, the United States only approved 1,548 applications for political asylum, reveal statistics from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS).
In its 2021 refugee and asylee annual flow reportpublished in September 2022, indicates that the number of affirmative asylums in these four years was 629 and that of defensive asylums – a type of refuge requested by the migrant in response to being expelled from the country – was 919.
“As a result of the increase in asylum applications in 2019 and the pandemic in 2020, the system is behind. Some of the applications for work permits, after the required period of 150 days, have not been resolved”, they explain.
They also point out that in some states they ask migrants for biometric data to grant them work and many left without documentation, with expired or about to expire passports. This situation is aggravated because the consulates have worked to renew the documents, according to complaints from Nicaraguan exiles.
Almost 3,000 Nicaraguans declared inadmissible
NAHRA also notes that between 2017 and 2019 there were 2,894 Nicaraguan migrants who were declared inadmissible for the asylum process.
This association that provides legal help to migrants, reveals that in 2021 they provided advice to 532 migrants, more than 80% of them are men.
The internal statistics of NAHRA detail that 26% of these Nicaraguan migrants are young people between 19 and 35 years old. 40% of these were detained. Until March 2022, they provided legal support to 96 Nicaraguan migrants.
“The estimate of Nicaraguan political asylum seekers who are in the detention centers of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. (ICE) is from 179 to 200, some of them have been detained without any due process for more than a year”, they point out.
Migrant deaths have also increased. According to a monitoring CONFIDENTIALSome 50 Nicaraguans have died this year, most of them drowned in the waters of the Rio Grande and in traffic accidents. Among them five children.
