Two journalists specialized in migration, along with Nicaraguan lawyer and political analyst José Pallais, conducted an in-depth study of the complex structure of irregular migration to the United States, confirming that this massive phenomenon is being used as a tool to destabilize the North American country.
The three experts, who participated in a virtual seminar on this topic organized by Expediente Abierto, are certain that the weaponization of migration has been made possible through coordinated planning between Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, led and primarily advised by Russia and China, which view the United States as their main adversary in the world.
Nicaragua is key in human trafficking
Pallais asserted that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo has played an aggressive role in irregular migration, even involving the police and military in this illegal business, which has generated thousands of dollars for the Ortega-Murillo regime.
“The Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua has been very active in using migration as a tool in hybrid warfare to attack democracies, particularly the United States of America, which it views as an adversary to be exterminated and eliminated due to its position against the axis of totalitarian regimes led mainly by Russia and China,” said Pallais.
According to José Pallais, the authoritarian regimes of these countries have a plan to remove the United States from the leadership it has held since the end of World War II, and impose “a new world order,” something that has been a repeated narrative of Ortega and his wife Murillo, who is also Nicaragua’s spokesperson and vice president.
Pallais said that when the United States ended the benefits granted to the Cuban population under the Cuban Adjustment Act, the Cuban regime was forced to open other routes of migration, as they could no longer travel directly from Cuba.
According to the Nicaraguan analyst, this led to Ortega granting visa-free entry to Cubans traveling to Nicaragua. The Central American country became a transit destination for Cubans on their journey to reach the United States by land.
“They began arriving by air, through charter flights involving airlines from different countries. Later, charter flights from Venezuela followed, and flights were also organized from Haiti, which was facing a tremendous crisis and was considered a failed state,” Pallais explained.
Irregular migration figures
It is estimated that approximately 1,500 charter flights arrived in Nicaragua starting in 2022, originally from Venezuela, Haiti, and Cuba, but later expanding to include flights from Asia, Africa, and Europe.
It is estimated that this charter flight business initially generated $100 million for Nicaragua.
Approximately 600,000 migrants used this new air route to reach Managua, which became a boom for illegal migration. From there, they continued by land through Central America, eventually reaching Mexico and the U.S. southern border.
All of this required very detailed preparation. In a regime like Nicaragua’s, where power is centralized, no decisions are made without the involvement of the president (Ortega) and the vice president (Murillo). The preparation took a long time, including training for charter flights and organizing the logistics for protection by the police and military, which shows that this could not have been done without a strong political will to instrumentalize and exploit migrants,” Pallais said.
Nicaragua is directly accused by the United States of facilitating irregular migration through charter flights. Official figures from the Nicaraguan Civil Aeronautics Institute (INAC) show that in 2021 Nicaragua received 12,177 passengers who arrived via charter flights. In 2022, this number reached 165,770 migrants.
The airlines that have operated flights carrying migrants to Nicaragua include: Ghadames Airlines from Libya, Alexandria from Egypt, Legend Airlines from Romania, Universal Sky Carrier, Aruba Airlines, Conviasa, Sky High Aviation Services, and Air Century.
Migrants identify Nicaraguan Police in their illegal route
Spanish journalist Marc Marginedas, who is also an expert on Russian affairs, stated that his investigations have confirmed that Nicaragua is behind the trafficking of people seeking to reach the United States.
During a visit to shelters in Mexico, where refugees from different nationalities, including those from Asia and Nicaragua, were staying, a Nicaraguan migrant told him that he had met an immigrant from India who paid around $600 for a trip from the Dominican Republic to the port of Bluefields.
These migrants are transported in boats by the Nicaraguan coast guard, in coordination with Nicaraguan Police.
The Spanish journalist also mentioned that he has graphic evidence of a sign with large Chinese letters in the municipality of Ocotal, very close to the Honduran border, where Asian migrants gather before being moved together towards the northern border.
“The migration figures are immense”
For his part, Argentine journalist and writer Ignacio Montes de Oca highlighted the human side of migration and the urgent need for people to leave their countries due to the severity of the sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba, particularly due to extreme poverty and human rights violations that force them to seek other destinations for a better life.
“Venezuela has pushed 7.7 million people out of a population of 28 million. Cuba has expelled 1.4 million inhabitants. Nicaragua has 1.4 million migrants from a population of 7 million. We are talking about more than 10 percent of the population, although in the case of Venezuela it is slightly less. But the numbers are so large that they exceed the refugees and those displaced by the war in Ukraine, the refugees from the war in Syria, and the refugees from the war in Afghanistan. The migration figures are immense,” Montes de Oca said.
The seminar titled Strategic Dialogue: Manipulated Exodus – The Use of Migration as a Weapon of Political Warfare in the Era of Authoritarianism, organized by Expediente Abierto, was moderated by Eduardo Ulibarri, a journalist, diplomat, and Costa Rican analyst.