USA imposed sanctions on businessmen and government officials of Nicaragua for “facilitating” illegal migration to that country and warned that it will not “tolerate” actions that “undermine” its security, according to the State Department.
In recent years, Washington has accused the leftist government of the co-presidents and husbands of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, of turning the country into a shortcut for the arrival of flights with thousands of migrants to continue their journey to the United States, among them Africans and Asians.
US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement that Donald Trump’s administration took the “steps” to “revoke visas for individuals in Nicaragua identified as knowing facilitators of illegal immigration.”
“This includes owners, executives and senior officials of transportation companies, travel agencies and tour operators,” said the official, without identifying them.
He added that “the entities” represented by those sanctioned “facilitated trips through Nicaragua, enabled by the permissive immigration policies by design of the Nicaraguan dictatorship.”
In 2024, the government of then-President of the United States, Joe Biden, imposed similar sanctions on Nicaragua for facilitating the arrival of charter flights and accused Managua of selling visas to migrants expressly so that they could continue their route north.
“The United States will not tolerate actions that undermine its national security or its immigration laws,” Pigott warned.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump launched a strong policy against illegal immigration that includes mass deportations and raids.
