Q24N (Confidencial) A group of 49 Nicaraguan political exiles and their families will be left stranded in Guatemala, after the financial and lodging aid provided by migrant organizations runs out, according to warnings from their fellow countrymen.
The ex-prisoners have until 11 am, January 31, 2025, to vacate the five shelters where they have been staying for three months, according to information provided by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Guatemala.
In total, 68 Nicaraguans are left defenseless. Of these 49 are political prisoners, and there are nine family units, which include three minors, explained Julio Dávila, who was released along with 134 other citizens on September 5, 2024, by telephone.
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He explained that UNHCR met them individually to inform them that they had to find accommodation on their own and that the last financial aid provided by the United States Government consisted of 2,500 quetzales (about 323 dollars), which they must withdraw from the bank no later than Thursday, January 30.
The released prisoners do not have other aid or jobs because they were waiting to be approved by the Safe Mobility program to go to the United States. They also do not have political asylum or permission to work in Guatemala.
Of the 135 former political prisoners who were exiled to Guatemala, seven were resettled in Costa Rica and 79 managed to go to the United States through the Safe Mobility program. Nicaraguans exiled with little budget for rent
The 49 who remain in Guatemala, 39 of them were rejected by the US for the crimes fabricated by the dictatorship Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, they said. The other ten were waiting to be admitted, but the program was suspended by President Donald Trump on January 20, the day he assumed the presidency.
“We have managed (help) with organizations such as the Catholic Church, but we have not received a response that assures us that they will give us support while we are here,” said the former political prisoner Pedro Gutiérrez, via WhatsApp.
The exiles are looking for shelters, rooms or apartments that they can rent, but they admit that they do not have sufficient funds to cover the expenses.
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“The cheapest apartment without furniture costs at least 250 dollars,” said Gutiérrez.
To this amount must be added the deposit, which is why several ex-prisoners have decided to join groups of two or three to rent an apartment due to economic limitations.
“What worries us most is what will happen after January 31. UNHCR has stated that they do not have any more, that with the money that the United States sent we will have to sustain ourselves, I don’t know how long, while the process with Spain advances,” lamented Dávila.
“We don’t know what to do,” adds Gutiérrez, 43 years old. “We don’t know where to go. We don’t have food. This month (January) they didn’t give us any more money for food, we had to look for it and the truth is that it is a very difficult situation,” he said.
Slow process to resettle in Spain
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The first denial letters from the United States were delivered in mid-October 2024, said Dávila. Since then, the ex-prisoners began the process to request Spanish nationality and resettle in that country. However, none have received a response.
The ex-prisoners rejected by the US sent the request for resettlement to Spain via email, said Dávila. They received an automatic response thanking them, telling them that they would take the request into consideration and that they would be called. They were also asked not to send more emails so as not to duplicate requests.
“No one has responded. And there is also the offer from Canada that has been launched so far. They told us that it will be a selection of six people,” said Dávila.
While they wait for the resolution of the Governments of Spain and Canada, the former political prisoners will begin an asylum process in Guatemala to access a work permit in this country.
They ask for a review of cases for the United States.
Nicaraguans hope that there will be a process of review of their cases in light of the refusals to enter the United States.
“What we want is to enter into this review process for two things: to clear our records, because a third country is not going to want to accept you with what they (the dictatorship) stated in the letter, and to come out clean so that we have the possibility of entering the United States. Why not? Yes, we deserve it,” Dávila stressed.
The former prisoner assured that “that was the promise that the delegate of the United States embassy made when he arrived at ‘La Modelo’ and got on the buses.”
“He told us: —you are going to a process. Guatemala has all the logistics of a humanitarian nature to be able to guarantee its stability and that the resettlement goes safely to the United States,” he recalled.
“It is not that they were going to make a selection, it is not that they were going to put us in a sieve,” he added.
The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has exiled some 395 political prisoners.
The first group of 222 released prisoners was sent to the United States in February 2023.
It then exiled three groups of priests totaling another 38 to the Vatican, and in September 2024 it sent a group of 135 prisoners of conscience to Guatemala. All of them lost their property and their nationality.
The article originally published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated by the Q. Read the original in Spanish here.
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