Central America | Nicaragua is funneling migrants to the United States and making millions in the process

in Central America located in Nicaragua uses immigration as a weapon against the United States and makes money for itself at the same time. That’s what he says to STT Manuel Orozcodirector of the immigration program at the Washington think tank The Inter-American Dialogue.

According to the think tank’s calculations, between May 2023 and May 2024, Nicaragua flew more than 200,000 migrants to the country on chartered flights.

“Nicaragua has seized the opportunity offered by the large number of immigrants coming from different parts of the world,” says Orozco.

He considers it clear that this is a deliberate action to promote the movement of migrants to the US-Mexico border.

to Nicaragua there may be many more migrants who arrived by air. News site La Prensa between January 2022 and November 2023, 1.43 million tourists arrived in the country via the airport of the capital Managua, but 600,000 did not leave via the same route.

In recent years, Nicaragua has made it easier for many foreigners to enter the country by removing visa requirements for Cubans and Haitians, among others.

According to Orozco, most of the migrants arriving in Nicaragua on chartered flights are from Cuba or Haiti.

Nicaraguan and the US relationship is strained. It has been undermined by the president Daniel Ortega the regime’s persecution of the opposition, to which the United States has responded with economic sanctions.

Ortega, who runs the country autocratically, is a former left-wing extremist and is very anti-US.

The mechanization of migration is an opportunity for Nicaragua to put pressure on the United States and make money at the same time, says Orozco.

“In the last 18 months, the Nicaraguan government has benefited from migrants by at least 100 million dollars.”

In May, a senior official of the US administration said in a background call to the media that the Nicaraguan government, among other things, sells visas to migrants arriving by air who require them to leave the country within 96 hours.

Nicaragua drives immigrants to the United States in another way as well. According to the Inter-American Dialogue, after 2019, 13 percent of Nicaragua’s population has left the country.

The government’s repressive actions are in the background. In 2018, Ortega’s government violently suppressed widespread anti-government protests, and the crackdown on dissidents has continued since then.

An estimated three million migrants arrived at the border between Mexico and the United States last year, of which at least 100,000 were Nicaraguans and 200,000 traveled through Nicaragua on chartered flights, says Orozco. In addition, there are migrants who passed through Nicaragua by other means.

“So at least ten percent of migration is made possible by Nicaragua, either by driving people out of the country or through transportation,” says Orozco.

United States announced in May on new sanctions against more than 250 representatives of the Nicaraguan government. The reasons for the sanctions were said to be the administration’s attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms, the suppression of civil society organizations and the exploitation of vulnerable migrants.

In addition, the aviation industry was urged to keep an eye out for signs of illegal entry.

According to Orozco, charter flights have at least temporarily stopped as a result of sanctions or the threat of them.

However, the longer-term effects on migration are still a question mark.