U.S. Takes Additional Steps to Counter Repression in Nicaragua

U.S. Takes Additional Steps to Counter Repression in Nicaragua

The repression of the Nicaraguan people by the regime of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, continues.

The U.S. State Department’s recently released human rights report on Nicaragua noted, “Individuals linked to the government of President Daniel Ortega Saavedra carried out a campaign of harassment, intimidation, and violence toward perceived enemies of the regime, such as former political prisoners and their families, farmworker activists, prodemocracy opposition groups, human rights defenders, private-sector leaders, and clergy, other religious actors, and church-affiliated civil society groups.”

In response to this repression and to the regime’s callous exploitation of vulnerable migrants, the U.S. State Department is imposing visa restrictions on an additional 250 members of the Nicaraguan government, including police and paramilitary personnel, penitentiary officials, prosecutors, judges, and public higher education officials.

In addition, the U.S. Treasury Department designated three Nicaragua-based entities: a Russian military training center that supports the Nicaraguan National Police in its abuse and prosecution of political opponents; and two gold companies that produce revenue for the Ortega-Murillo government. “The United States remains committed to using our tools to support the Nicaraguan people, including by constraining the Ortega-Murillo regime’s ability to fund its oppressive and destabilizing activities,” said Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson.

Besides the export of gold through corrupt, government-affiliated companies, the regime is also raising funds on the backs of desperate migrants. Among other tactics, its sells visas at Nicaraguan airports that require migrants to leave the country in 96 hours. In this way, the regime profits from facilitating irregular migrants who, in many cases, make their way to the United States.

In response, as National Security Council Spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement, the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Treasury have “jointly issued a policy alert to travel companies with information about the ways smuggling networks and transnational criminal organizations prey on vulnerable migrants; ongoing U.S. actions to hold these malicious practices actors accountable; and key steps that the travel industry can take to avoid complicity in the exploitation of migrants.”

The United States urges the Nicaraguan regime to cease its repression of the Nicaraguan people and stop its cynical exploitation of vulnerable migrants. The new measures show the United States will continue to hold the regime accountable for its abuses.