in La Prensa, April 3, 2026
The measure only benefits some of those exiled who are not connected to politics. Dissidents and human rights defenders warn that it is just as arbitrary as the prohibition to return and that it does not offer security guarantees.
As the days go by more stories are known of Nicaraguans who the Ortega Murillo regime, after months or years of having prohibited their return, now are informing them that they can return. Some have already returned and report no incidents at the moment of their return. Other were already in the country, because they entered through blind spots to reunite with their families, and have remained in hiding. But there are some who are afraid and prefer “to wait until the dictators leave.”
This is the decision that Robert made, a 33 year old man from León who is still surprised. He told La Prensa that the first thing he received was not an email nor a formal notification, but a phone call which left him speechless. On the other side of the line, a firm and straightforward masculine voice told him that his request to enter Nicaragua was answered. He did not believe him, he thought it was a joke, and even an attempt to deceive him. Without concealing his distrust, he asked who was speaking.
The response was equally direct: “We are calling from Nicaragua, and we have sent an email confirming the authorization.” There was no room for doubt, they insisted. “No one is playing around here,” they told him, with a tone that combined formality and warning. Moments later he checked his inbox. There was the message. Brief, without many details, without a heading, but enough to confirm what up to that moment seemed improbable: he can return to Nicaragua, when last year he was denied entry.
The notifications for return are coming from the email of [email protected]
They prohibited the return of entire families
Even though their story seemed unusual, in recent years it became common in Nicaragua. In 2025 Roberto left for Miami in a family trip, when he tried to return, they did not allow him. “For me the whole world fell apart, my wife, my son, they also left, they were not able to destroy us as a family,” he said, and added that since then he tried to make his life again in Canada, there they faced a complex process, marked by economic adaptation, and adaptation to the climate, diseases, and other difficulties.
When we asked him, what did you feel when you read the email? He responded with his voice breaking, “I cried…I prayed so much to return, I called where they told me to call, I asked the political secretary to speak for me, some would tell you to call deputies, repeating the story, asking that they closely look over my social networks, to confirm that I never published anything against them (the government),” he pointed out.
The call that he received opened a door for him that he thought was closed. Nevertheless, more than relief, what he feels is fear. “I now have work here, I am going to wait for them to leave and then I will return,” he stated.
They suspend the prohibition to return for some Nicaraguans
Like Roberto, in recent days several Nicaraguans received authorization from the Office of Migration and Immigration (DGME) to enter the country. According to business leaders, many of those “benefitted” with the decision are “well off and well known.”
But there are also others, who still ask themselves what caused the Ortega-Murillo regime to violate their right to enter and leave the country, because they were not connected to any political, social nor business organization. Because even though that is not a crime, in most cases it caused the dictators to impose the prohibition to return on some Nicaraguans.
For a dissident former diplomat who because of fear of reprisals asks not to be named, lifting the prohibition of return on some Nicaraguans is “a confession of the abuse, the violation of a right which they committed, and that it is part of State policy.” In addition, it is just as arbitrary as the prohibition, because it is a selective policy, they apply it to whomever they want.
Suspension of the prohibition should be generalized
” The logical and correct thing would be a resolution with a general effect, which would allow for the return of all those people who have had their reentry blocked. But with this selective policy they are excluding people of high or medium political profile,” explained the former diplomat.
He added that raising the prohibition is not benefitting people who had a prominent participation in expressions of dissidence or opposition, nor those who do not have a close connection with prominent dissidents. In addition, he warns that the disposition implies a certain amount of risk, because they are not offering security guarantees for their return, because the decision does not include commitments of respect for rights and non-persecution for those who return.
For the former diplomat the decision to suspend the violation of the national and international right which implies turning thousands of Nicaraguans into de facto stateless persons, is a “brushstroke with which they want to fix up their image in the face of the pressure from the United States…to improve the perception of the Trump Administration without causing profound changes…Because it is a change in attitude and not in the model of persecution, and shows that they continue without showing the will to change,” stated the former diplomat.
Reaction to pressure from the United States
For the exiled former political prisoner Juan Sebastián Chamorro, the decision to restore the right to return of those affected is a reaction of the Ortega Murillos to the pressure of the State Department over several issues, religious persecution, abuses committed in the mining sector, and the use of migration as a political weapon against the US, which helped more than 650,000 people from different countries of the world to shorten their journey to the United States.
“I imagine that the dictatorship is trying to curry favor, selectively allowing those people to enter who according to their criteria are in a category that is not so political,” assumes Chamorro.
For his part, a leader from the private sector who also asked that his name be omitted, confirmed that several people who have received the authorization to return are “well-to-do” and “recognized by the public”. He thinks it is positive that those who faced this cruel experience, for the simple fact that the Ortega-Murillos wanted to block their access, can now return.
“At any moment they can change the measure back”
Nevertheless, he warns that just as now they are reversing the prohibition to return for some people, like they did with the128 countries who were changed from category A visas (free entry) to category C visas (require visa applications), at any moment they can reverse those decisions and go back to the previous state.
“As long as Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo are those who are in charge of the government, at any moment they can change those 128 countries back to A visas, and at any moment those people can leave, and the government could not allow them to return. Or they can simply expel them again. In other words, there is no guarantee that this is an issue which is changing in substance,” says the businessman.
Another important aspect that he thinks should be considered is that in this and other measures announced recently what they are intending, according to them, is to avoid turning themselves into a target for the Trump Administration. “So, they simply want to win their sympathy, in quotes, so that there are no type of actions like those that we are seeing in Venezuela and Cuba…They are simply trying to keep the hurricane from passing over them,” states the businessman.
Suspension of the prohibition is discretional and without transparency
Human rights defenders agree with political and business leaders in that the suspension of the prohibition of return continues to be marked by discretionality and lack of transparency.
Gonzalo Carrión, a human rights defender, questioned the form in which these authorizations have been handled, because they have been given with absolute arbitrariness, when “State policies should be characterized by their publicity. But in this case, it was not public when they violated the right to return to the country, nor is it now when they are authorizing it.”
Likewise, he compared these cases with the situation of the 452 banished people, pointing out that, even though it also was an irregular process, at least it was public in nature. “Even though it was absolutely arbitrary when they declared the 222 and then us 94 stateless, on that occasion the guy who assumes the duties of the president of the Supreme Court, with one of the most dishonorable procedures, read a document and at least that was public,” remembered Carrión.
Notifications reflect abusive practices
In addition, he insisted that the notifications sent by email reflect abusive practices. “An arbitrary measure with entirely abrupt procedures, lacking publicity, is an exhibition of the abuse of power,” said Carrión, and he added that they decide on the civic death of people and violate their right to freedom of movement to enter and leave the country, and there is no law which allows these rights to be violated.
Carrión added that the regime should address all Nicaraguans. “The message should be, first of all, to the people of Nicaragua, whose life project, the majority of the people, they have violated. The message should be that they are beginning to “correct”. In addition, he urged the Ortega-Murillos to publicly own these decisions.
“They love to bathe themselves in the people, and they have not done so for a while, let them show their faces and speak openly. That they announce that they are starting to make corrections on the basis of the abuses, even many of which are irreparable.”
Why are dissidents saying that they cannot repair the damage?
On his part, Lulio Salvador Marenco, also a human rights defender and the director of the Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective, pointed out that allowing for their return does not compensate for the damage caused. “Authorizing the return one year later does not correct all the harm caused the victim, they caused damages. Labor, family, psychological damages, the costs of regularization processes in other countries, and situations of vulnerability, among other serious conditions, caused by losing everything in one moment,” he stated.
Likewise, he questioned the lack of clarity in the process. “I do not know what the internal procedure was that they used, whether the Ministry of the Interior has reviewed case by case, whether the external pressure has begun to make the regime cede, or what would have been the trigger as such. What is true is that we are talking about hundreds of lives that were ruined by the regime and that now, at least some, can return to their country.”
Nicaragua continues hijacked
The defender also warned that the context of the country continues to be hostile. “Nicaragua continues being a hijacked country which does not enjoy freedom, it is not a country where you can fully develop. Returning to Nicaragua is returning to a country under absolute control and possibly under economic insecurity. Because many of the people who could return was through asking them for large sums of money.”
In addition, he did not rule out that these policies would continue, “we do not rule out that the people who return at this time might also be asked for money. In general, the regime has been releasing political prisoners from jail in a timely manner. Now it is allowing people to return to Nicaragua, it seems like the international pressure “has left its mark on El Carmen,” stated Marenco.
All the people consulted insist that in spite of the fact that some people are receiving authorization to return to the country, the process continues surrounded by opacity and does not represent, on its own, a solution to the violations denounced in recent years.