In recent years the dictatorships of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have taken a 180-degree turn in immigration policy implemented in Nicaragua. Between 2015 and 2017, before the sociopolitical crisis of 2018, Ortega’s regime closed the passage of Haitian and African migrants, stranded for months at the southern border, and now allows a mass entry to continue their journey to the United States.
LA PRENSA verifies that the arrival of foreigners of Haitian and African origin is huge. Between 10 and 20 daily flights from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to Augusto C. Enter Santino International Airport; providentials; Havana, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Hundreds also arrive on Avianca flights from El Salvador. At the country’s airport, queues for African migrants bound for Managua are notorious and are now full.
On October 21, according to a list of scheduled flights published by the International Airport Management Agency (EAAI), 15 flights were scheduled to enter from Port-au-Prince, Haiti; 3 from the Dominican Republic; 2 from Havana, Cuba; and 2 from the island of Providenciales.
These foreign flights carry between 50 and 220 people in each unit, according to LA PRENSA’s review of the capacity of flights to the country. So, according to these data, 1,000 to 5,000 foreigners enter per day from those cities.
Immigrants have mapped the path to America.
In a report recently published by LA PRENSA, it verifies that Haitian and African immigrants arriving in the country already have routes and services where they can obtain maps to continue their journey to the United States.
Some migrants cross irregularly into Honduras, paying $50 per person to reach Nicaragua’s northern border. Others, on a budget, choose to travel on intermediate buses that take them to bordering municipalities.
This newspaper recently published Augusto C. Santino visited the airport and found the facilities crowded with Haitian expats and people from the African continent. Some of the migrants, unable to afford a hotel room in the capital, even sleep at the airport with their minor children.
You may be interested: This is the route of African, Cuban and Haitian immigrants who use Nicaragua as a “bridge” to reach the United States.
Others choose to sit and wait in the airport parking lot or approach transporters to hire a transfer service to the northern border.
Some merchants at the airport told LA PRENSA that these foreigners are consuming less and that many are looking for ways to find people they have had contact with before.
“They understand almost nothing. If they buy something, we’ll put a number on it so they know how much in dollars to pay. Another thing they always do is they ask with a photo, they show you a photo of the person they’re looking for, and a lot of people sleep in the airport. Kill time and leave in the morning,” said an employee of a restaurant located at the airport.
They condemn the “business” of dictatorship
In a joint statement, a group of opposition organizations condemned the absence of the Ortega dictatorship at a regional summit on migration convened by Mexico’s President Manuel López Obrador as the complicity of dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Nicaraguan state companies profit from the mass migration of people who want to reach the United States.
“Ortega is facilitating and doing business with thousands of Cubans and other intercontinental migrants heading north to Nicaragua,” the protesters noted.
Also read: Migrants use Nicaragua to reach US and avoid Darien
And, precisely for this reason, they highlighted that Nicaraguan dictators are not among the guests of the Regional Summit on Migration to be held in Palenque, Mexico on October 22nd, with the participation of heads of state from Belize, Colombia. Cuba, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Panama.
