Nicaraguan Mother of Murdered Son Denied Asylum in USA
Yadira Córdoba has been jailed since August, faces deportation
The defense has until December 8 to file an appeal; meanwhile, the Nicaraguan woman will remain detained in San Antonio, Texas.
HAVANA TIMES – A Texas, USA immigration judge has denied the political asylum request of Nicaraguan Yadira Cordoba, a member of the April Mothers Association (AMA), and ordered her deportation to Honduras.
Cordoba’s defense team has until December 8, 2025, to file an appeal. In the meantime, the April mother will remain in a detention center in San Antonio, Texas.
The Nicaraguan woman arrived in the United States in 2023, fleeing political violence in Nicaragua after the murder of her son, Orlando Cordoba, during a protest in 2018. After entering the country, she applied for political asylum, but on August 20, 2025, she was detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In a recent interview with Confidencial, Ronald Cordoba, Yadira Cordoba’s son, warned that he fears for his mother’s safety if she is deported to Honduras, as this would make her an “easy target” for the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
A Difficult Trial for Yadira Córdoba
Cordoba explained that his mother’s case has been seen by four immigration judges. Such a situation, he noted, “puts us on alert,” as it’s possible that “the case is highly publicized,” but in the end, “these changes just mean she spends more time in that detention center.”
The political asylum process in the United States has been “very hard emotionally for her,” Ronald lamented. The April mother has had to tell her story over and over again, which — according to her son — “reopens the wounds and forces her to relive all those feelings, to feel them again as if it were the first time, to reopen that pain and those tears.”
According to Ronald Cordoba, his mother cried during the hearing, saying that “this process has not been easy. It’s very hard to go back to my wounds and remember everything I’ve lived through because of a murderous government.”
She had to “see my brother (Orlando Cordoba, 15 years old) dead, bury him, then be forcibly exiled to Costa Rica, and once again flee into forced exile out of fear, insecurity, and the search for a place where she could feel safe — a place where she could have a bit of peace. And now, to be (in the US) in this situation,” he recounted.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.