Sandinista businessman and content creator on Tik Tok Juan Caldera reported via a video on that platform that the United States Department of State notified him of the revocation of his American visa, via an email.
“The United States is revoking my tourist visa to enter the United States, a visa I have had for three decades. I was informed via email that my tourist visa was being revoked,” said the merchant, who proudly displays his love for Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo on social media, and who in 2018 took photos of himself armed with a shotgun with a group of men, supposedly merchants from the Oriental market, while in the country, his party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) had begun to organize bands of paramilitaries and parapolice to shoot unarmed opposition protesters.
“I appealed at the time, as lawyers say, on the spur of the moment, I appealed by responding to the email where they appealed and I gave them my arguments that I was doing very well, that I had never had problems with the United States authorities, that I had never even driven (a vehicle) in the United States, my points are at one hundred, as an argument I told the United States Embassy in Managua, and well, their response was that the decision of the State Department was unappealable,” Caldera explained.
The popular chicken merchant from the Oriental market, who has also been involved in scandals due to lawsuits that have led him to the Sandinista justice system for violence against other merchants, said that in order to avoid being left with the response of the U.S. Embassy in Managua, he hired a Miami law firm to appeal the revocation of his visa directly to the authorities of the State Department.
“I looked for an immigration law firm in Miami, they did their work, asked for evidence, showed my entire history through a registry and immigration history, but the State Department again said ‘no’, ratifying its decision,” explained the controversial businessman.
“Danger to the United States”
Caldera said he was “surprised” by the response he received from the American authorities. “What surprises me about the response they give is that they imply that I am a danger to the United States,” Caldera said, while resting his face on his left fist and pressing his lips together in a gesture of resignation.
“These fuckers are out of orbit,” says the controversial TikToker, who has more recently debuted as a singer, which has also made him the target of ridicule through social networks.
His hope is placed in the Republicans
“But well, that is a decision of the Democratic government, headed by Joe Biden. I hope that the new authorities (who will be elected) in the elections now in November, the Republicans, can reconsider these wrong decisions that are affecting the civil rights of tourists who visit that country,” says Caldera, with evident ignorance of the fact that in the United States the decisions made by an institution do not necessarily change because the governing party changes, as occurs in Nicaragua under its leader Daniel Ortega.
Caldera also ignores the fact that obtaining a US visa is not a “civil right” of a foreign citizen, but rather a power that the United States has to grant or deny a visa to whomever it deems appropriate, and that the country can cancel the document at any time it sees fit.
In recent years, after the beginning of the April crisis and the intensification of Sandinista repression against the Nicaraguan population, the US government, both under Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, has imposed sanctions against more than 50 officials of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship; against at least 10 public and private entities linked to the FSLN’s economic ring; and has cancelled visas for some two thousand officials who support the regime, including deputies, magistrates, mayors, university authorities, police officers and fanatics of the dictatorship.
Caldera has been the target of campaigns by opposition activists to have his visa suspended. During some of his visits to the United States, social media has shown photographs of him armed, wearing Sandinista clothing or dancing to music alluding to Daniel Ortega, contrasted with images of him enjoying the freedom and democracy of that country, which the Sandinistas have seized for Nicaraguans on their own territory.
