Q24N — Between January and August 2025, 30 flights carrying 3,482 deported Nicaraguan immigrants arrived in Nicaragua, according to the US Deportation Flight Report, prepared by Thomas Cartwright and published this September by Human Rights First.
According to the report, the number of documented Nicaraguans deported through last August already exceeds the annual deportation records for the last five years in Nicaragua.
After the first two years of sociopolitical crisis in Nicaragua, which triggered the massive migration of Nicaraguans fleeing Ortega’s repression, in 2020, the United States deported 3,200 Nicaraguans on 28 flights. In subsequent years, this figure has not been surpassed.
More than 18,000 Nicaraguans deported in five years
In 2021, US authorities deported 2,900 Nicaraguans on 25 flights; In 2022, 3,100 Nicaraguans were deported on 27 flights; in 2023, 2,600 were deported on 22 flights; and last year, 2,700 were deported on 20 flights.
The increase in the number of deportations in 2025 coincides with the imposition of the new immigration policy of President Donald Trump, who took office in the United States in January of this year.
The Human Rights First report indicates that Nicaragua remains among the ten countries with the most deportation flights from the United States, with more than 18,000 Nicaraguans deported in the last five years, despite its “limited capacity” to reintegrate returnees.
More flights in the second quarter of 2025
Nicaragua is the Central American country with the fourth highest number of flights carrying deportees so far in 2025, surpassed only by Guatemala (309), Honduras (259), and El Salvador (119).
Human Rights First details that deportations to Nicaragua increased especially in the second quarter of 2025, with the arrival of more flights: May (5), June (5), July (6), and August (5).
In the first four months of the year, the number of flights was lower: January (2), February (2), March (2), and April (3).
The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, although it has opened the door to flights for Nicaraguans deported from the United States, has begun implementing new repressive policies in recent months, including detentions or the de facto imposition of house arrest, against some of these returnees who left Nicaragua seeking international protection after participating in the 2018 social protests.
Source link
Q24N
