Trump dashes the hopes of exiled Nicaraguans assigned to the resettlement program in the United States
Gustavo and Marisol’s hope of resettling in the United States dawned collapsed on the morning of January 21, hours after Donald Trump signed – after his return to the White House this Monday, January 20 – an executive order that suspends the admission of refugees under different immigration programs, including “Safe Mobility”, to which this Nicaraguan couple had applied, which is persecuted by the regime of Daniel Ortega y Rosario Murillo.
In the same anti-immigrant tone that largely allowed the New York magnate a second presidency, the executive order alleges that “the entry of refugees would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” In this way, the Secretary of Homeland Security is instructed to suspend “decisions on refugee status applications until a conclusion is reached.”
As of Trump’s signature, the 90-day suspension of refugee admission comes into effect, that is, three months, until the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, “will present a report to the president through of the National Security Advisor on whether the resumption of refugee entry into the United States under the USRAP (United States Refugee Admissions Program) would be in the interest of the United States,” the executive order states.
“We feel devastated, because after three years of being refugees in Costa Rica, the Safe Mobility program represented for us a new beginning in our lives, because here, due to our age, it has been difficult to find work and the salaries do not correspond to the high cost of living in Costa Rica,” say Gustavo and Marisol, a couple who are over 53 years old.
The Safe Mobility Program is an initiative of the United States Government in conjunction with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other international partners, such as Spain. According to the State Department’s preliminary report for fiscal year 2024, “the program has benefited more than 23,000 refugees from the Western Hemisphere,” who were granted US residency. “They have been safely and legally resettled in the United States in fiscal year 2024, which represents a four-fold increase over fiscal year 2023.” Of that total, 2,340 are Nicaraguans who were refugees in Costa Rica.
“Well, although we already saw a tightening on the issue of migrants coming, the truth is that we did not imagine that the Safe Mobility program was going to be touched upon, because it was something discussed between those United Nations agencies and the countries,” Marisol says with plenty of discouragement. “But this man turned the knife on the issue of migrants and we really have hope that the program will continue, because when listening to this man (Trump) speak, it is clear that he does not want more immigrants or those who are persecuted. politicians are a priority on their agenda. It is very sad because our case was already quite advanced.”
Between October and December 2024, two resettlement program flights left for Spain and the United States. And another flight of resettlers to the United States was scheduled for the first week of March. However, with Trump’s executive order, it is not known if it will be maintained, since those selected for that trip have not received any notification from the IOM. Everything, like Trump, is uncertainty.
The only ones with fewer alternatives
In addition to “readjusting the refugee admissions program to the United States,” the new “Trump era” began with the execution of two other programs that were created by his predecessor, Joe Biden, to deter irregular migration: the CBP One mobile application and humanitarian leave (known as Parole) for citizens of Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela. However, the outgoing Administration had already announced that they would not extend the Parole.
Through CBP One, migrants who were in Mexican territory could fill out a form with their information and request an appointment to appear at a port of entry on the southern border. While the parole – which consisted of a permit to travel to the United States by plane – allowed the entry of more than 531,000 migrants from the four beneficiary countries. According to the figures, of those half a million migrants with Parole, 90,566 were Nicaraguans.
For Nicaraguans who are with Parole In the United States, the only option to remain legally in that country was to have initiated a request for political asylum before completing the first year under the program. But the asylum request is a complicated process and few did it, although there are no exact figures. While Venezuelans and Haitians who enjoy Parole have another possibility to remain in the United States: appeal to Temporary Protected Status, known by its acronym TPS. That is to say, the Nicas are the migrants with the least chance of challenging Trump’s mass deportation plan and the suspension of the resettlement program collapses their hopes in the face of the consolidation of the Ortega-Murillo regime in Nicaragua, bolted to power after a constitutional reform.
