Double Abuse of Banished Nicaraguans Rejected for US Asylum
Crimes fabricated by the dictatorship continue to affect them. An April mother, an activist and two university students share their stories.
HAVANA TIMES – The Ortega regime’s false accusations of drug trafficking and money laundering led the United States to deny entry to 39 released and banished political prisoners. These former political prisoners were part of a group of 139 prisoners sent to Guatemala on September 5, 2024. Their expectation was that they would be vetted and allowed to resettle in the United States through the Safe Mobility Initiative for refugees.
Their rejection by the United States has generated indignation among those affected, especially since their release and transfer to Guatemala was arranged by the Biden administration. Nevertheless, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is now assuming as true the “fabricated accusations” against them.
USCIS has also noted that some of the testimonies of those released from prison were seen to lack “credibility,” The released prisoners call such allegations “hurtful”, because they cast doubt on their experience as victims of repression in Nicaragua.
Although they know there’s no appeal in this case, those rejected have decided to submit their cases for review, not only because they still hope for admission to the US, but also to defend their honor. These are some of their stories.
Nelly López: “It hurts me that they think my testimony is not credible”.
The dictatorship murdered her nephew, and for demanding justice she suffered persecution and jail. She was released from prison, exiled, and stripped of her nationality, but the United States considered her testimony “not credible.”
Nelly Griselda Lopez, 42, was stripped of her Nicaraguan citizenship and banished to Guatemala after a year and a half as a political prisoner under the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. In the rationale for rejecting her, the agency alleged that her testimony wasn’t “credible” enough for admission into the Safe Mobility Initiative for refugees.
Lopez was informed about the program hours after she and another 134 released political prisoners were released, boarded onto a plane, and taken to Guatemala. At that time, the Guatemalan consulate told them they had 90 days to legalize their immigration situation, and representatives of the US government told them they could apply for the Safe Mobility Program. Nelly Lopez never expected to be refused, or – worse yet – that they would doubt her testimony.
“It hurts me that they say my testimony wasn’t credible, when I’ve been fighting against the regime since 2018, demanding justice for my nephew,” she stated.
Lopez has been a member of the April Mothers’ Association ever since her nephew, Erick Antonio Jimenez, was killed on July 17, 2018 in Monimbo, Masaya, during the Ortega regime’s “Clean-up Operation”. For demanding justice, she became a victim of surveillance and persecution. On April 15, 2023, Nelly Lopez was arrested while organizing a “Judea” – a traditional religious pageant – during Holy Week. Days later, the Ortega courts accused her of “conspiracy.” Unfortunately, she notes, the US Immigration Officials failed to duly analyze the context of the actions she suffered.
On December 20, 2024, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services informed her that her petition for resettlement in the United States as a refugee had been denied, nor would she be given a permit for temporary residency through the humanitarian parole program.
The principal reason that USCIS denied Lopez the right to resettlement was a perceived lack of “credibility.” The document she was given said: “following careful consideration of the total circumstances and all relevant factors (including the evidence and testimony presented during your interview for refugee status), we failed to find your testimony credible.”
In the face of this rejection from the US immigration authorities, Nelly Lopez, along with 38 other banished prisoners who were denied entry, find themselves in “immigration limbo” in Guatemala. All must now seek other alternatives for permanent settlement.
Meanwhile, Lopez will request a review of her case, not only for the benefits of the Safe Mobility Program, but also, she insists, “to clear my name.”
Edder Muñoz: “Leaving things this way would be like confirming I’m a criminal.”
His anti-dictatorship activism put him in jail three different times. The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights granted him precautionary measures, because he was declared guilty and sentenced without real evidence. Nonetheless, the US denied his asylum petition, all because the dictatorship imprisoned him under false charges of drug trafficking.
Edder Oniel Muñóz, 34 years old, is another of the exiled political prisoners that the US government refused to admit to the Safe Mobility Initiative. For him, this denial has been like “the final blow” after being locked up three times in the prisons of the Ortega dictatorship.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ main reason for considering him inadmissible to the program is that he was accused of drug trafficking. “There is no exemption available” under US law for those charged with this offence.
USCIS also alleged there were problems of “credibility” in the testimony presented by Muñoz. They added: “After careful consideration of the totality of the circumstances and all relevant factors (including the evidence and testimony presented at your refugee status interview), we do not find your testimony credible.”
Muñoz finds it “outrageous” that US immigration authorities would put so much value on the “false accusations” made by the regime, despite the fact that his case is political, and that he was convicted in a trial without any guarantees, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) pointed out on September 23, 2022, when it granted him precautionary measures.
“I don’t know why they would endorse everything that the dictatorship is accusing us of,” Muñoz questions.
He is committed to submitting his case for review, because “If I leave it this way, with what that resolution says, it would be like confirming that I’m a criminal and I committed those crimes.” He continues emphatically: “I haven’t committed any crime. The dictatorship accused me in order to keep me in jail and stop me from organizing politically.”
Muñoz is a member of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy in the Nicaraguan department of Masaya. He was detained for the first time in November 2018, accused of terrorism, and released under the regime’s policy of family coexistence on May 20, 2019.
He was once again detained on September 22, but freed hours later. On that occasion, he says, he was physically assaulted by Police officials.
On November 23, 2021, the Police detained him for the third time. He was charged with internal trafficking of narcotics, psychotropic and other controlled substances, plus illegal possession of firearms or ammunition. He was subsequently sentenced to 8 years, 6 months in prison. On September 5, 2024, he was released and banished to Guatemala. Five days later, on September 10, the Nicaraguan government stripped him of his nationality.
Gabriela Morales: “I would have preferred that they simply put in the letter that they didn’t want us in the United States.”
Recently released and banished, Gabriela Morales was one of the first ones interviewed for resettlement in the United States. She was rejected because of the fabricated crimes she had been charged with. She believes that her emotional state affected her interview, but is determined to clear her name.
Gabriela Ivonne Morales, 27, is another of the 39 exiled political prisoners in Guatemala who were not admitted to the US under the Safe Mobility Initiative. She was rejected because US immigration authorities considered her testimony “not credible,” an argument that calls into question her history as a victim of repression in Nicaragua.
Morales assures that she’s less upset about being denied resettlement than she is about the text of the letter the US Citizenship and Immigration Services sent her, alleging that after an exhaustive review they did not find her testimony credible.
“I respect the US denial, but I would have preferred they simply put in the letter that they don’t want me in the US, not tell me my testimony isn’t credible,” declares the young political activist.
She points out that she was one of the first people interviewed by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), very shortly after arriving in Guatemala, a situation that could have had a negative influence on her interview.
“Emotionally we were not well; physically we were not well. I had no notion of time. I gave dates that weren’t even close, not because I wanted to confuse them, but because I’d just come from a very difficult situation. Going into a very tough interview at that moment was perhaps a mistake,” she reflects.
Gabriela adds that she had another interview with a US immigration official that felt more like a police interrogation. “The interview wasn’t that long, but it was very demanding. It was an interrogation, but I believe it was necessary,” she comments.
The exiled Nicaraguan is a social worker who graduated from the then-private Juan Pablo II University, now confiscated by the Ortega regime. She participated actively in the protests, from 2018 until she was arrested on August 19, 2023, for burning a Sandinista flag. She was sentenced to eight years in jail for the crimes of terrorism, undermining the national integrity, cybercrime, disturbing the peace, and damaging the national patrimony.
After being rejected by the Safe Mobility program, Morales is submitting her case for review. “I don’t know about going to the United States, but, yes, I’m doing it to clear my name,” she insists.
Mayela Campos: “The charges they fabricated continue affecting us”
The United States took into account the false accusations against her to deny her asylum. Campos considers their decision unjust, and an attack on her dignity. She will appeal the decision in order to clear her name.”
Mayela Campos, another former political prisoner exiled to Guatemala, was rejected from the US Safe Mobility program due to the bogus accusations of “moral depravity, terrorism, and trafficking of controlled substances” leveled against her by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Despite widespread international awareness of the Nicaraguan dictatorship’s tactics, these false charges continue to weigh down her judicial record.
Campos was a third year Industrial Engineering student at the National Engineering University (UNI) when she was arrested on August 19, 2023, for burning a Sandinista flag. For this, she was prosecuted and convicted of terrorism, cybercrime, conspiracy, undermining national integrity, and alleged drug trafficking.
The charges “invented” by the regime “continue affecting us,” Campos says. “Injustice continues to haunt us.”
Campos is one of the 135 political prisoners released and exiled to Guatemala after a series of negotiations between the Ortega regime and the US government. Given this, she finds it hard to understand why USCIS would assume the accusations against her to be true.
“They themselves (the US government) participated in the negotiations to receive us here in Guatemala, when we were expelled from Nicaragua. They themselves had all the evidence that we are political prisoners,” comments the young Nicaraguan activist.
In Mayela’s view, the way in which she and 38 other banished political prisoners were rejected from the Safe Mobility Initiative felt like a “trampling of her dignity.”
“We completely respect the decision of the United States. We’re also very grateful for all the work they put in to getting us out of the Nicaraguan jails. However, this feels wrong to us,” the young woman adds.
She too will submit her case for review for two important reasons: to clear her name and avoid having those accusations continue to color her future.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.