Fr. Marcos Somarriba fled from Nicaragua when he was a teenager during the Sandinista revolution and was granted political asylum in the United States.
Decades later, as a Catholic priest in Miami, he is dismayed to see how the Nicaraguan dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo reinforces his control over his compatriots, and the Trump administration announces plans to deport thousands of his Nicaraguan compatriots who have been in this country for decades.
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“My people, the Nicaraguan people, are stunned. Not to go, what to do, and I think the regime will not be open to this,” the priest told the register.
“People disappear, they put people in jail, exile people and don’t let her return to the country,” he added.
After the devastating hurricane that hit Central America in 1998, leaving 3,800 people dead more than half a homeless, the United States opened its doors to the residents of Nicaragua and Honduras, granting them the status of temporary protection (TPS). This designation protected them from deportation and allowed them to work, but did not facilitate access to citizens.
Now, many of those foreigners who have built lives, raised families and started businesses in the United States face deportation under the presidency of Donald Trump, who has taken energetic measures against illegal immigration and has expanded the deportation of migrants.
On July 7, the National Security Department announced the termination of the TPS for these people from September 25, citing improvements in the conditions in their countries of origin.
“The temporary protection status (TPS) was never planned to last a quarter of a century,” said a DHS spokesman. “The impact of the natural disaster that affected Nicaragua in 1999 no longer exists. The environmental situation has improved enough for Nicaraguan citizens to return home safely. This decision restores the integrity of our immigration system and guarantees that TPS remains temporary.”
However, last week, a federal judge failed against the Trump administration, granting these long -standing residents of the United States a temporary extension. Its protection against deportation will expire on November 18, 2025.
Fr. Somarriba, of the Santa Águeda Catholic Church in Miami, home of many members of the Nicaraguan diaspora, does not agree with that evaluation that the conditions have improved in Nicaragua.
The priest explained to the Register that under the dictatorship of Ortega and his wife Murillo, the conditions are very worse than when he left 45 years ago. “It’s horrible how their own people persecute. This is unheard of and invisible,” he said. “I had never seen anything like that in my country as is happening right now.”
Human rights violations of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship are well documented. In February 2025, the United Nations Human Rights Council warned that the Nicaragua Government has committed “serious human rights violations,” independent institutions has eliminated the opposition, while establishing an authoritarian regime.
The most recent report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom described the conditions in Nicaragua as “abysmals”, noting that the dictatorship has systematically persecuted the Catholic Church, arbitrarily stopping bishops and priests and using tactics to intimidate the faithful and prevent them from practicing their faith.
Since 2018, the regime has canceled the legal status of more than 5,400 non -governmental organizations (NGOs), including numerous Christian and Catholic entities.
The Government has also ordered the dissolution of religious orders, including the Sisters of the Charity of Mother Teresa, and has closed Catholic radio stations and other media.
Martha Patricia Molina, human rights lawyer and author of Nicaragua: a persecuted churchworks with Nicaraguans in Texas, supporting migrants, including priests and seminarians in exile in the United States.
“The vast majority of us would like to be in our homeland, but the only response of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship for us is the jail, cemetery or exile,” the Register told.
Catholics, he added, cannot freely practice their faith in Nicaragua. He added that in the masses all are monitored and that the police photograph and record videos of the attendees. Religious processions are not allowed.
“They can only practice their faith within the churches. They know they could be imprisoned if they come out,” he said.
In the midst of the intensification of repression against the Church in Nicaragua, the Biden Administration intervened diplomatically in 2023.
After negotiations with the Ortega regime, 222 political prisoners – among them six Catholic priests and two seminarians – were taken from the prisons of Nicaragua in the middle of the night and uploaded to a plane to the United States.
Although they escaped from Nicaragua to arrive healthy and saved to the American country, its immigration status – and its future – remains uncertain, as well as that of Nicaraguans who face the loss of protection of the TPS.
John Feeley, an American ex -embassy and a career diplomat, told the register that, since the US embassy in Nicaragua only had a week to coordinate the process, he accelerated. The deported priests and other political prisoners were only granted a temporary humanitarian probation, without work permits or political asylum.
“These are people who were imprisoned by a dictatorial regime. Therefore, there is no evidence First facie clearer of a legitimate asylum application, ”said Feeley.
Feeley also indicated that in the face of long delays in the processing of asylum applications in the United States, some of them have been forced to seek citizenship in other countries. “I know several of them, and they are choosing the United States voluntarily,” Feeley said.
“They cannot return to Nicaragua, but they go to places where they could be treated with the basic human dignity required by political asylum, and that the United States used to observe, but under the Trump administration he has decided that we will not observe,” he said.
The National Security Department did not respond to a request for comments at the time of publication.
In response to a register consultation, a spokesman for the US Department of State. UU published the following statement:
“We condemn the atrocious and continuous violations of freedom of religion, beliefs and expression committed by the dictatorship of Murillo-Ortega, as well as oppression and reprisals that led so many Nicaraguans, including the clergy, illegal immigration, exile and expulsion of Nicaragua. Although the Department of National Security (DHS) manages the immigration processes in the United States and can respond Questions about probation and status adjustment, our position is clear: the United States will continue to press to give accounts for these abuses. ”
The Santa Águeda de Miami Catholic Church, where Fr. Somarriba serves, is closely linked to the difficult situation of Nicaraguan political exiles who were on that plane from Managua.
The two seminarians on board continue their training in the nearby Regional Seminar of San Vicente de Paul in Boynton Beach, Florida. Mons. Silvio José Báez Ortega, auxiliary bishop of Managua, who was forced to exile in 2019, teaches in the seminar and celebrates a weekly Mass in Santa Águeda.
“They should have granted them political asylum immediately. They know that we leave the prison innocently, unjustly accused and convicted,” said Fr. Somarriba. “After all, the United States welcomed them and brought them here as part of an agreement with the Nicaraguan government.”
Fr. Somarriba is concerned about what could happen to anyone deported to Nicaragua, including those who have fled the country more recently.
He pointed out that Ortega last month gave a speech in which he called his followers to spy on his neighbors.
“So there is no room for terrorists, conspirators, traitors, because they will know how soon they are discovered, they will be captured and processed,” said Ortega.
The speech, according to Fr. Somarriba, points out an intensification of the repression of the regime against the opposition: “If you are not with them, you are dead, you are exiled or go to jail. And this is the fear that people have in Nicaragua.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in the National Catholic Register
Zelda Caldwell
Zelda Caldwell is a senior writer of the National Catholic Register based in Washington DC (United States).