Nicaraguan ex-Political Prisoners Marooned in Guatemala
without shelter or economic assistance
Sixty-eight Nicaraguans, including both banished political prisoners and their families, have been left abandoned following the suspension of UN aid and the United States’ refusal to admit them as promised.
HAVANA TIMES – Forty-nine banished Nicaraguan political prisoners, together with their families, have been left marooned in Guatemala by the expiration of the economic aid and shelter provided by migrant organizations.
According to those affected, the Guatemala office of ACNUR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) recently informed them they have until 11 am on January 31st to leave the five shelters where they’ve been staying for three months.
This leaves a total of 68 Nicaraguans defenseless. The group includes 49 former political prisoners, nine of them now present with their nuclear families, including three children. This information was relayed to Confidencial by Julio Davila, who was released from the Nicaraguan prison together with 134 others on September 5, 2024, and put on a plane to Guatemala.
According to Davila, ACNUR met with them individually to inform them they’d need to seek housing on their own, and that the last economic aid package provided by the US government consisted of 2,500 quetzales [approximately 232 dollars] had to be withdrawn from the bank by January 30.
The released prisoners have no other economic assistance nor are they working, since they’d been waiting to be approved by the US Safe Mobility program for relocation to the United States. They also lack refugee status and work permits in Guatemala.
Of the 135 released political prisoners banished to Guatemala, seven relocated to Costa Rica, and 79 were able to enter the US through the Safe Mobility Initiative.
Stateless Nicas with few resources to rent
Thirty-nine of the 49 former prisoners still in Guatemala were refused entry into the US due to the fabricated accusations that the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship used to imprison them. The other ten were still waiting for admission when the program was abruptly cancelled by now-president Donald Trump upon his inauguration on January 20th.
“We’re applied [for assistance] with organizations of the Catholic Church, but we haven’t received any assurance they’ll support us for the time that we’re here,” former political prisoner Pedro Gutierrez indicated via WhatsAppp.
The banished Nicaraguans are currently looking for shelters, rooms or apartments they could rent, but they admit they don’t have sufficient funds to cover the expenses. “The cheapest furnished apartment here costs at least US $250 dollars,” Gutierrez stressed.
A deposit must also be paid, in addition to the rent. Given their economic limitations, many of the ex-prisoners have opted to form groups of two or three in order to rent some kind of apartment.
“What’s worrying us most is what’s going to happen after January 31. ACNUR maintains they have no more funds they can allocate, that we’ll have only the last money the US sent to support ourselves for I don’t know how long, while the process of relocating to Spain advances,” Davila lamented.
“We don’t know what to do,” Pedro Gutierrez added. “We don’t know how we can hang on. We don’t have food. This month [January] they stopped giving us a food allowance, and we had to scramble. Truly, it’s a very difficult situation”
Process for resettling in Spain moving very slowly
The first denial letters from US immigration began arriving in mid-October, 2024, explained Davila. From that time on, the released prisoners began applying for Spanish nationality and for permission to relocate to that country. As of the present, however, none of them have yet received any response.
The ex-prisoners rejected by the United States sent their petitions for resettlement in Spain via e-mail, Davila continued. They then received an automated response thanking them, telling them that their petition would be considered, and that they would call. The same communication asked them not to reply in order to avoid duplication of requests.
“No one has received any response. There’s also an offer from Canada that has been set in motion only now. They told us they would select six people,” Davila indicated.
While they await some resolution from the governments of Spain and Canada, the former political prisoners will have to begin the process of seeking asylum in Guatemala, so they can obtain permission to work in that country.
Requesting a case review in the US
The Nicaraguans are also hoping for a process of case review, given the United States’ refusal to admit them.
“We’re asking them to undertake the review process for two reasons: first, to clear our records, because a third country won’t want to accept us with the accusations they [the Nicaraguan dictatorship] alleged, and the US agency included in the letter. Also, to have a clean record and open the possibility of entering the US. Why not? Yes, we deserve it,” Davila highlighted.
“That was the promise the representative from the US embassy made to us when he arrived at the La Modelo [men’s prison in Nicaragua] and came onto the buses.”
“He told us: ‘You’re entering into a process. Guatemala has all the humanitarian logistics to be able to guarantee your stability while the resettlement process into the United States proceeds securely,’” Julio Davila recalled.
“It wasn’t that they were going to make a selection; it wasn’t that they were going to put us through a sifter,” he added.
To date, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has released and banished a total of 395 political prisoners. The first group of 222 released prisoners were sent to the United States in February of 2023. Later, three different groups of priests – a total of 38 individuals – were released to the Vatican; and in September 2024, the dictatorship banished to Guatemala another group of 135 political prisoners. All of these victims were subsequently stripped of their nationality and all their assets. Scores of Nicaraguans already in exile suffered the same fate.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.