Nicaraguan journalist Josselin Nazareth Montes González, originally from Chinandega, who has been in custody at the Broward Transition Center in Pompano Beach, Florida, since April 18, will face her final hearing on December 12, where the judge will decide whether she will be deported from the United States to Nicaragua or not.»
Amid fears that the judge may order Montes’ deportation, after denying her bail in June, family, friends, and acquaintances have started a social media campaign urging against deportation due to the imminent risk she faces in Nicaragua under the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega.
Fanny González Argüello, Montes’ mother, addressed the North American authorities in a video: ‘I am begging, pleading from the bottom of my heart for you to review my daughter’s situation because if she returns to Nicaragua, she will face imprisonment, violations, and even death. As a mother, I implore you, I beg of you to help my daughter, to have mercy on her, because as a mother, I couldn’t bear the thought of any harm coming to my daughter.'»
González Argüello emphasized that on December 12, when her daughter appears before the judge, it will be her birthday.
Protest in front of the congressman’s office
Pablo Cuevas, director of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Defender-USA, told LA PRENSA that on July 5th, the judge set a new date for the final hearing at 1:00 p.m. Miami time.
«He gave more time to improve or strengthen the evidence; we obtained some testimonies from protest leaders, and I provided them to the lawyers to present to the judge. There have been a couple of reschedulings in recent months, and this is the last one. I understand there won’t be any further rescheduling,» he mentioned.
Cuevas indicated that as a human rights defender, «we have faith, hope, and confidence that the judge will grasp Montes’ situation and rule in her favor.»
He then stated that a protest is scheduled for December 12th at 9:00 a.m. in front of Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar’s office, where the Nicaraguan Human Rights Defender, friends, and acquaintances of Josselin Montes will be present.
«We want to deliver a document seeking her assistance, not talking about exerting influence, but to make the journalist’s reality visible. We want to demonstrate that she is at risk of human rights violations in Nicaragua, and we want her help in making Montes’ situation visible. We aim for the judge to clearly understand the risk the journalist faces, and the prosecutor, who typically tries to undermine the arguments of the person under scrutiny, in order to deny them asylum», he stated.
Cuevas emphasized that Montes «is distressed, tired of being in custody, and requests that all this cease because she is not a criminal. She is seeking asylum due to the risks she faces in Nicaragua.»
Harassment led her to migrate
Day and night, Montes’ house was besieged by Sandinistas, leading her to leave her municipality and change locations over the past five years. Unable to endure this situation, which meant not being able to work or appear in public, she decided to migrate to the United States this year. Like thousands of citizens, she entered irregularly through the Mexican border.
However, she mentioned that her case took a different process than most because she had previously held a tourist visa that was canceled in 2016.
Montes told this newspaper that after her initial hearing with immigration agents, she was informed that she couldn’t stay in the United States. Although they released her from the immigration detention system, she was fitted with an ankle monitor on her right ankle to monitor her location and was given a deportation warning.
Montes had a tourist visa before 2018. In 2016, she traveled to the United States for two months to explore the country. However, when she was about to board her flight back to Nicaragua, her visa was canceled without further explanation.
She assures that she didn’t exceed the six-month period she could stay in the United States as a tourist, and her document had a validity of 10 years. The expiration date of her visa would have been next year (2024). «They canceled my visa, which I didn’t know for them constitutes a deportation,» said Montes.
