After the Ortega regime harassed, imprisoned, and interrogated me for challenging its rule, it had only one thing left to do: force me to leave my homeland.
After the Ortega regime harassed, imprisoned, and interrogated me for challenging its rule, it had only one thing left to do: force me to leave my homeland.
N icaragua, under the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, is a clear example of the politically motivated use of migration by an autocratic regime. The dictatorship uses migration for economic and political gains. The following testimony, my own, is just one example of the level of repression this couple is inflicting on the entire nation, as well as on citizens from other countries.
I arrived in the U.S. two years ago. Three hours before I left, standing on the tarmac of the Managua airport, I had no idea where I was going. I had been imprisoned for two years, and it wasn’t until a police officer asked me to sign a simple form that I realized I was being sent to the U.S. The alternative was to go back to prison, so I signed without hesitation.
I was deported from Nicaragua — my own country — along with 221 other political prisoners. While we were flying, Ortega ordered a reform to the Nicaraguan constitution that stripped us of our nationality. We landed in Washington stateless, not only denied the right to live in our own country but also facing the challenge of building a new life without citizenship.
The day I was freed was also the day I was reunited with my wife and daughter. Most of my fellow prisoners were not as fortunate. They left their families behind. This began another period of anguish, family separation, and police harassment for their loved ones back home.
In 2018, Ortega reformed the country’s social security system. This sparked massive protests from students, the elderly, and the general population. The government responded with violence. It used live ammunition to kill hundreds and wound thousands.
The Catholic Church called for a national dialogue between civil society and the regime. I participated as a representative of the Nicaraguan private sector in these talks. Sadly, the government used the opportunity to consolidate power and escalate violence. Many of those who participated in the dialogue, including bishops, were imprisoned or forced into exile. Over 200 religious figures from various denominations have been expelled. In 2023, the legal charter of the Jesuit order was dissolved, and the University of Central America confiscated. The government reopened it as a state university.
From 2018 on, as a member of the Nicaraguan political opposition, I faced constant threats, beatings, and harassment by government supporters and the police. Without any legal reason, I was first banned from traveling outside the country, then from leaving the capital, and eventually from leaving my own house.
In January 2021, under increasingly harsh repression, I announced my candidacy for the presidency of Nicaragua. On the night of June 8, 2021, dozens of police officers stormed my home, arbitrarily arrested me, and took me to prison.
While in prison, I was held incommunicado for three months. During this time I was denied visits, barred from contact with the outside world, and forbidden from having legal counsel. My trial took place inside the prison, violating both Nicaraguan law and international standards. My trial was a farce. The witnesses were all police officers, and I had only two minutes to speak to my lawyer before the trial.
On February 23, 2022 (my birthday), I was sentenced to 13 years for “crimes against the homeland.” Despite my appeals and legal challenges, the Nicaraguan judiciary, controlled by the regime, held firm. My wife was accused of treason for her work advocating for my release and had to escape through the forest to Costa Rica before she settled in the United States.
I spent almost two years in prison, separated from my loved ones and isolated from the world. But during this time, I learned about resilience and the importance of solidarity.
The most common question I’m asked is: What is it like to live almost two years behind bars? Every known international standard for humane treatment was violated. We faced degrading treatment and discrimination (especially against women), and were isolated from the outside world. We were denied reading and writing materials. Our sleep was difficult as we were under 24-hour artificial light. At the same time, we were denied sunlight for weeks on end.
Family visits were infrequent. In total, we spent six months without seeing our families. No letters or books were allowed. Medical attention was inadequate, and, tragically, one prisoner died in custody because of a lack of care.
Sanitary conditions were poor, and the food was insufficient, leading to weight loss and disease. Some prisoners endured extended solitary confinement, while others were placed in punishment cells for months, confined to small, poorly ventilated spaces.
Interrogations were relentless. I counted 400 sessions, sometimes several a day, particularly in the early days after the arrest. There was no privacy, and our dignity was disregarded. Religious ceremonies and the Bible were prohibited.
There was a strict ban on communication between cells. The only exception was speaking in a low voice within our own cells. The conditions were designed to break us, to limit our ability to share thoughts and information, and our ability to pray. We solved this issue of communication by learning sign language, and we became very good at it.
So how do you survive in such conditions without losing your mind? For me, it was a combination of intense physical and spiritual exercises. From Monday to Saturday, I would walk from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. This involved completing 3,000 rounds in my small cell, and 700 push-ups per day. We prayed the Rosary twice a day and the St. Ignatius Prayer every night with its powerful first sentences: “Take, Lord, receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, my whole will, all that I have and all that I possess. You gave it all to me, Lord; I give it all back to you.”
Sundays were reserved for cleaning my cell and resting. I also meditated for an hour, while my daughter Victoria Isabel would light a candle at the Grotto in the University of Notre Dame, where she was studying architecture.
This routine kept me focused, keeping worries and negative thoughts at bay. Negative thoughts are very common in prison, even when you are innocent. For example, I started to realize how my fight for democracy and my decisions were affecting the people I loved. A sense of guilt plagued me, as my wife and daughter were suffering for a fight over something that I considered important but was extremely costly. I felt selfish for not putting family first.
Prison can either break you or make you stronger. It can awaken the worst in someone — like it did for Ortega, who spent eight years in prison. Prison made me realize the true value of life and the consequences of every action. It made me realize the beauty of the sky that I couldn’t see. It made me realize what it meant to embrace a loved one, which I could only experience every six weeks, or sometimes even longer. Prison reaffirmed my commitment to justice. I was not driven by revenge, but by the need for reparation.
Liberty came on February 9, 2023. We were awakened in the middle of the night, placed on buses, and not told where we were going. After an agonizing drive, we arrived at the airport. There, a plane waited to carry us to the U.S. Our misery had ended, and a new life was beginning. That same day, I was reunited with my wife and daughter, nearly two years after being separated. During the flight and for the following days, we were treated with compassion and generosity by the personnel of government agencies, dozens of NGOs, religious organizations, and private citizens from throughout the U.S.
We were not the first Nicaraguans to interact with such entities. Seven years of repression in Nicaragua has created an emigration crisis. Between 2019 and 2024, nearly 13 percent of the population left the country. Emigres mostly headed to the United States, Costa Rica, and Spain. The exodus intensified after the crackdown on the entire opposition leadership in June 2021. Encounters between U.S. Border Patrol officials and Nicaraguans surged from around 2,000 in 2021 to 164,000 in 2022.
Many of these individuals entered the United States through the humanitarian parole program, which was revoked recently. Hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans now face immense uncertainty about their future. For many, deportation means prison and torture. I sincerely hope that the life-threatening nature of our situation is carefully considered by the authorities of the countries receiving them.
The Nicaraguan regime has stripped more than 500 opposition members of their nationality at a time when the United Nations was leading a global campaign to reduce statelessness. This action, which violates international treaties, has disrupted the lives of thousands and led to the violation of fundamental rights, including the right to identity and the right to access social services.
The Nicaraguan regime has also confiscated the properties of political leaders, including my own, and those of business leaders and organizations, NGOs, educational institutions, and the Catholic Church.
With Ortega’s declining popularity, migration serves as a means to rid the country of opponents and reduce anti-government sentiment. Additionally, the regime encourages migration to the U.S., allowing new emigrants to leave so they can send money back home. This strategy has helped keep the economy afloat. Remittances have risen from 15 percent of GDP in 2021 to 26 percent in 2023.
Ortega has also exploited migrants from third countries heading to the United States. By the end of 2021, he had opened the border and adopted an open policy to promote Nicaragua as a destination for migrants from around the world, allowing them to enter the country and continue their journeys north. It is estimated that between 2022 and 2023, approximately 628,000 people from various countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia arrived in Managua, the capital, and continued their journeys north.
Ortega sends migrants to the United States for political purposes. A staunch enemy of the U.S., Ortega is exploiting people’s need to migrate to strike a blow and sow discord within the U.S., essentially “weaponizing” migration — a familiar tactic used by autocracies. Ortega’s actions mirror the strategy employed by the dictator of Belarus, who used his country as a platform to send migrants — in a kind of hybrid warfare — to destabilize Lithuania, Poland, and the European Union.
Dictators do not care about their own people, let alone people from other countries. Their disregard for human dignity leads them to use migrants as mere tools to extract resources and as political weapons. They fail to respect the dignity of those seeking opportunities elsewhere and inflict suffering on their own citizens.
The story of my life is a testament to the reality that the right to stay in one’s homeland is too often violated by those in power. Human dignity and fundamental rights are desecrated every second in many parts of the world, including my country. It is important to realize that every migrant, every refugee, has a story, and that generalizations cannot be made. The social teachings of the Catholic Church regarding migration become extremely relevant at this moment. The church holds that while people have the right to stay, they also have the right to migrate when conditions become unbearable. States have the moral duty to protect human dignity and ensure that families are not torn apart. At the same time, states have the duty to regulate migration and ensure safety. Vulnerable people must be allowed to flourish in their new lands when their dreams are shattered at home.
As for me, I hope to one day return to Nicaragua and, with the help of many, rebuild my country after all it has endured. I know I will not be alone in this endeavor.