This opinion piece was republished by Trending Nicaragua as one of the most read articles in 2022. It was written in June by one of the editors of La Prensa. Even so, its treatment of the implications of the very relevant topic of Nicaraguan migration is even more true today.
By Fabián Medina in La Prensa June 9, 2022
Migrants
If you visit any one of the well-known blind spots on the Nicaraguan borders, you will observe how, from the south, foreign migrants are constantly entering, like ants in a single file line, who are going to the United States, and how from here, through the south and the north, Nicaraguan migrants are leaving looking for a better life outside the country. All in the full view of soldiers, police or Immigration officials who apparently have the order to turn a blind eye to this. This image portrays one of the most lucrative and abhorrent businesses of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Someone might say, so why not put police or soldiers on the border to stop the foreign migrants who want to cross the country? No. So why not jail the Nicas who are looking for a way to leave Nicaragua? No. The point is to quit seeing migration as an instrument for obtaining political and economic advantages, because all that revenue that the regime is getting is built on a mountain of blood, bones, pain and flesh of generally the poorest people of this country. It is an immoral business.
Go and leave
To stop the migration of a country, it does little or nothing to fill the border with cops. This is not the point. Daniel Ortega encourages migration closing the opportunities for Nicaraguans to make their lives in Nicaragua. By taking away freedoms, by demolishing the Rule of Law, by closing sources of jobs and support programs, closing universities, denying free elections, turning the country into his personal farm, he is expelling Nicaraguans. Go, go, go. A hundred thousand Nicaraguans were detained trying to illegally enter the southern border of the United States last year. Thirty have died in the attempt just in this year. These are chilling figures, that nevertheless translate into money for Daniel Ortega.
Family remittances
Each Nicaraguan who leaves through the border is a family remittance in dollars or Euros which will come to Nicaragua. Family remittances represent as much income as 30% of all its exports, including the free trade zones. In the short term it is good business for the regime, because it solves its immediate need for money, but in the medium and long term it is fatal for Nicaragua because it means the loss of professionals, young labor force, who should be in the country to lift it up from the prostration in which it finds itself.
Putting down roots
It is known that the migrant who leaves almost never returns to his or her country. It is logical. They begin to make a life outside the country. Their children are born there, maybe form a new couple, form their circle of friends, find work and possibly studies. They put down roots. Not just that, but the established migrant begins to bring with them one by one people from their family circle and close friends. That is why we find in cities like Barcelona, Sevilla or Miami, for example, replicas of communities or neighborhoods of Nicaragua where their cousins, aunts, brothers and sisters in law or godparents live.
Flight
Obviously, migration is not an easy problem to solve. Nor is it exclusive to Nicaragua. But the current levels are truly alarming. It is a country which is being left without its people. Right now, think about how many of your relatives, fellow workers, friends, or people you know are no longer in Nicaragua. No one with any common sense can recommend to someone else to stay in Nicaragua, as it is now. The one who leaves is not to blame but the country which is not providing them opportunities to stay. It is sad.
Returning
I hope someday, and I hope it is soon, we might be able to see waves of Nicaraguans returning like what happened after the triumph of Doña Violeta in 1990. At that time, we began to see the faces of people who we had not seen in at least 10 years. Somocistas, National Guardsmen, contras, opposition leaders, youth that left fleeing Military Service were returning with all their knick-knacks and marked by the culture that received them in their exile. Do you remember the Miami boys? Not everyone came back, nevertheless. Despite the fact that Nicaragua began to makes its way to democracy and opportunities began to appear, many had already made their lives outside the country. Some even disengaged from Nicaragua. That is how migration is.
Abnormalities
If we were a normal country, with a normal government, we should be thinking about how to stop this hemorrhaging in order to give this country hope. In most cases, even though a Nicaraguan might be able to live better outside the country than in the Nicaragua that they left, they will live with less opportunities than the citizens of the country that received them. If we were a normal country, we should be looking for how to create those opportunities that Nicaraguans find outside the country so that they might not leave their own country. But that would be impossible, as long as there exists a dictatorship that has made a business out of the exportation of Nicaraguans, a business which keeps it alive. Ortega has to leave power again so that thousands of Nicaraguans might return to their homeland. Migration is another powerful reason to put an end to this dictatorship.