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    Trump v Biden: how different are their policies on the US-Mexico border?

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    AnalysisTrump v Biden: how different are their policies on the US-Mexico border?Alexandra Villarreal in Austin Biden’s immigration promises fall short as some of Trump’s policies remain in place – here’s what’s similar and what’s differentUnder Donald Trump, Americans were confronted with a near-constant onslaught of racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy, especially regarding the US-Mexico border, as the same man who led chants about building a wall there won the 2016 presidential election and took control of the Oval Office for the next four years.Vulnerable migrants were mounting “an invasion”, Trump said. The United States’ asylum system – a key commitment to its humanitarian values – was “ridiculous” and “insane”. Immigrants of color made headlines for supposedly coming here from “shithole” countries, and Mexican immigrants were called drug dealers, criminals and rapists.US turns back growing number of undocumented people after arduous sea journeysRead moreAfter such public vitriol and humanitarian scandals, Joe Biden billed himself as the anti-Trump candidate who would restore honor and decency to the presidency, partly by building a fair and humane immigration system. One of his campaign statements noted: “Most Americans can trace their family history back to a choice – a choice to leave behind everything that was familiar in search of new opportunities and a new life. Joe Biden understands that is an irrefutable source of our strength.”Initially, Biden delivered, with a flurry of executive actions and other first steps to undo Trump’s crackdown. But when the number of people crossing into the US from Mexico without authorization swiftly increased, his more tempered tactics became a political liability, giving Republicans fuel to spin false yet convincing – to some – narratives about an “open” and mismanaged border.Soon, Biden’s top political operatives started pushing him to adopt a more hardline approach, while some of his immigration experts jumped ship, unable to stomach enforcing some of the same Trump-era practices they loathed.Amid such an ideological quagmire, a reactive, confusing and often contradictory immigration agenda has emerged from this administration. And now, new policies are being admonished by advocates – and even some serving Democrats – for seemingly plagiarizing Trump’s very own playbook, without meaningful input from Congress or organizations on the ground.So is the Biden White House simply a more politically correct Trump 2.0 on immigration at the US-Mexico border? We compare and contrast.Enforcing deterrenceMuch of both Trump and Biden’s border strategies are predicated on the notion that if the US government erects enough barriers and gets rid of enough incentives, people will stop trying to come.Thus far, that theory hasn’t really panned out – the US has continued to experience record-breaking numbers of migrants and asylum seekers at its south-west boundary, despite decades of presidents pursuing this paradigm of prevention through deterrence. But, at a border that is already hyper-politicized, hyper-policed and hyper-surveilled, the last two administrations have still largely relied on the enforcement-focused infrastructures and blueprints inherited from their predecessors.Recently, the Biden administration announced it would step up expedited removal, despite having previously rescinded Trump’s own sweeping expansion of these fast-tracked deportations. Under the practice, migrants can be swiftly repatriated without ever seeing a judge.Biden officials have also said they will be proposing a new rule to further limit asylum eligibility, a move that has incited anger among advocates who already fought similar bans under Trump.Expelled to dangerThe most infamous through-line between Trump and Biden’s approaches to people arriving at the US-Mexico border today has been both administrations’ controversial use of a health law to deny millions of migrants and would-be asylum seekers the opportunity to ask for protection, seemingly in violation of their rights domestically and internationally.Many people subjected to this policy – often referred to by its shorthand, Title 42 – have been stranded in or expelled to dangerous conditions in Mexico, or else swiftly returned to the unstable and sometimes life-threatening realities at home that many of them risked life and limb to escape. Others die trying to circumvent closed-off points of entry.The Trump administration invoked Title 42 ostensibly as a public health measure during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic and used it to quickly expel hundreds of thousands of people – including nearly 16,000 unaccompanied children.Biden stopped applying the aggressive policy to unaccompanied kids but has continued to expel individuals and families. Many stuck in Mexico because of Title 42 have subsequently been murdered, raped or kidnapped, with more than 13,480 reports of violent attacks during Biden’s presidency alone.Although the Biden administration eventually announced it was planning to end Title 42 restrictions last year, pending litigation has kept them in place for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, even as officials publicly argue against reliance on the policy, they have expanded its use multiple times, abruptly, to target Venezuelans and now also Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans.Those policy changes have been accompanied by the creation of limited legal pathways, but their eligibility requirements demand a level of financial resources and international connections that the western hemisphere’s most vulnerable, forcibly displaced people likely cannot produce.“Do not just show up at the border,” Biden warned potential migrants. “Stay where you are and apply legally from there.”Families, still separatedPart of Trump’s enduring legacy is tied to being the president who separated families at the US-Mexico border and threw “kids in cages” for days or weeks, often with little communication or information provided to keep track of them.In 2018, Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy shook liberals and conservatives alike as they learned about terrified children being ripped from the arms of parents who were now being prosecuted. Trump was eventually forced to end these hyper-visible family separations, but he continued to advance hardline practices that adversely affected children and families seeking help at the US’s south-west boundary, whether stranding young kids in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody or in hazardous Mexican border towns.Biden, by contrast, has stopped holding migrant families in Ice detention, so far. He also resumed programs that allow some from the Caribbean and Central America to reunite with family members in the US, and a task force is still trying to reconnect families separated by the Trump administration.Yet even as Biden tries to clean up Trump’s mess, de facto family separations continue. Unaccompanied children are exempt from Title 42, so some parents make the difficult choice to send their kids across the border alone, even when that means indefinite time apart.Love across the border: a couple’s 13-year quest to be reunited in the USRead moreThe bottom lineSo are Biden’s border policies turning into a copy of Trump’s?The reality is more nuanced, with a long history of bad approaches to humanitarian migration across presidents and some positive moves toward solutions from Biden, bolstered by a different rhetoric, new alternative legal pathways and attempts at more efficient processing.Yet parallels exist. Most notably, both administrations have done devastating harm to millions of forcibly displaced people, who came here looking for safety and opportunity only to become victims of a system that has left them stranded and vulnerable.And with Biden now shifting to the center and immigration looming as a liability issue in the 2024 presidential election for Democrats – most of whom get sucked into the xenophobic right-wing narrative without figuring out how to defend the benefits of the American melting pot – progressives, advocates – and millions of migrants – should brace for a tough foreseeable future.TopicsUS immigrationUS-Mexico borderUS politicsBiden administrationTrump administrationNicaraguaHondurasanalysisReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Biden finally heads to border as critics condemn his migrant crackdown

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      Biden finally heads to border as critics condemn his migrant crackdown Advocates attack president’s failure to uphold campaign pledges ahead of first visit to southern border since he took officeUnder pressure to address a surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border, Joe Biden announced a far-reaching crackdown on migrants seeking asylum last week, expanding the use of a controversial public health measure known as Title 42 to restrict people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela from illegally entering the US, while offering those legally seeking relief a new pathway to America.Before the president’s first trip to the US-Mexico border since he took office in 2020, immigration advocates condemned the Biden administration’s decision to expand Title 42 as disheartening and a failure to uphold his campaign promises. They took some solace in the creation of a legal pathway to asylum for those in four countries, but still, for them, Biden’s actions were not enough – they leave out other migrants, and the parole program is beset by requirements that impose significant barriers to migrants without access to resources, perpetuating inequities within the US immigration system.In other words, immigration advocates say, the cost of expanded expulsion of migrants under the guise of public health without a clear path to asylum outweighs the promise of expanded refugee access and a legal outlet for asylum. “For a lot of us working in immigration justice, at the start of the administration, there was incredible hope that Title 42 would end and push forward to re-establish access to asylum,” the director of the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Justice Campaign, Alex Miller, said. “We’ve been disappointed.”The Biden administration’s so-called “carrot and stick” approach aims to deter the historic-high millions of migrants fleeing persecution from their home countries and seeking US asylum from entering the country illegally. Federal figures from the 2022 fiscal year show that US border agents stopped migrants more than 2m times along the southern border, setting an all-time record. They turned migrants away under the Title 42 provision more than 1m times.“The problem is the carrot is not universally accessible,” Miller added. “Legal access to asylum will be limited to those who are the right nationalities, have the right means and support, to apply for parole … The sticks they are offering are restricting access, and that’s not a fair trade.”Under the Biden administration’s new policy, if migrants from those countries pass background checks, buy a plane ticket, obtain financial sponsorship, and meet other requirements, they would be allowed to legally enter under the “parole program”. They would be authorized to live and work in the US for two years.But immigration advocates worry about the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed rule – which they say is similar to the Donald Trump White House’s “transit ban” – because it would make migrants seeking asylum ineligible if they failed to seek protection in a third country before reaching the US and if they “circumvent available, established pathways to lawful migration,” as homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week.They also worried that the parole program’s requirements – modeled after the administration’s approach to refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Ukraine – impose barriers to migrants who lack the resources to buy flights and find a financial sponsor.On Twitter, United We Dream, an immigrant youth-led rights group, slammed Biden’s new policy “a racist and classist attack” on migrants. United We Dream’s deputy director of federal advocacy, Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s expansion of Title 42 would hurt “the same people seeking asylum that they purport to protect”.The American Civil Liberties Union’s director of border strategies, Jonathan Blazer, said in a statement that the Biden administration’s “knee-jerk expansion of Title 42 will put more lives in grave danger”, adding that his plan “ties his administration to the poisonous anti-immigrant policies of the Trump era instead of restoring fair access to asylum protections”.“His commitments to people seeking safety will ring utterly hollow if he moves forward in substituting one illegal anti-asylum Trump policy for another,” Blazer said.Miller told the Guardian that the administration’s new proposals include allowing asylum seekers to use an app in English and Spanish to schedule appointments. That, the administration argues, will reduce “wait times and crowds at the US port of entry and allow for safe, orderly, and humane processing”. Miller said that effort makes the legal asylum seeking process harder for migrants who lack technological access and speak indigenous dialects beyond Spanish as well as for those who cannot obtain legal representation to help them navigate the process.Biden has said that Congress needs to enact a more comprehensive immigration reform. In the interim, the administration’s new parole process, which he described as “safe, orderly” and humane, would “make things better but will not fix the border problem completely”.The National Immigration Law Center’s vice-president of law and policy, Lisa Graybill, told the Guardian that while the administration’s creation of the asylum that gives 30,000 people access is better than nothing, its overall approach reflects seeing immigration enforcement and creating outlets for asylum as a “zero-sum game”. It’s a mistake presidents and politicians have made before, she said.She added that Biden had been “following an old playbook that does not work” by allocating resources toward enforcement rather than creating a “humane and orderly processing system that is built around recognizing the right to asylum instead of violating it”. Instead, the parole program as designed, she said, will hurt impoverished migrants and those who fled their countries in haste without meeting all requirements, acting as barriers to even those who have legitimate asylum claims while helping middle and higher income migrants with access to resources.The chief adviser for policy and partnerships at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Angela Kelley, said that Biden’s creation of the parole program was “smart” and reflected an attempt to use the “tools in his toolbox and use them in more creative ways”. She pointed out that the Biden administration aimed to triple the number of refugees resettled seeking asylum from Latin American and Caribbean countries. Yet, she added, the outdated US immigration laws have not kept up with who qualifies for asylum, such as those fleeing the damaging effects of climate change.“That’s the difference maker: under Trump, it was all about kicking out people – they were systematic in dismantling the refugee program, legal immigration channels of people coming for employment for families, for students. That’s not the approach of the Biden administration,” Kelley said, noting that it will take time to see the effects Biden’s actions will take on the migration system. “They’re restoring all of that. The unfortunate continued reliance on Title 42 is a monkey on their back that they have to figure out how to shake and use the resources you have … to try [to] manage the migration of people the best you can.”Title 42’s future is uncertain as the US supreme court in December stopped Biden’s administration from ending the program to give the justices more time to weigh in on whether states have the legal grounds to intervene in an ongoing case over the program.Kelley, who had previously done immigration work for Biden and the Barack Obama White House, saw the expansion of its Title 42 program as “worrisome” for vulnerable migrants who would be sent back to dangerous conditions in Mexico. She noted that by creating legal pathways to asylum, the administration is trying to “to ease the pressures” at the US border in the hope that they wouldn’t need the pandemic program any longer.“What is heartbreaking is that in an effort to limit the number of people who are coming, you are turning away asylum seekers, who are the migrants you want to protect,” Kelley said.Immigration advocates and Biden agree that long-term changes needed to come from Congress – a questionable prospect given that the Republican-controlled House struggled to elect its speaker, and past bipartisan efforts at immigration reform had also failed.Even so, some advocates say now it’s a question of where resources are sent: They called for more resources to be directed toward assisting nonprofits and NGO groups working with asylum seekers at the border, hiring more asylum officers and more immigration judges, and investing in more legal assistance for migrants unable to afford private attorneys.“For three years under Title 42, access to asylum has been undermined,” Miller said. “All of the documented evidence of kidnapping, rape, and extortion of migrants in Mexico, in particular at the border – it’s incredibly troubling that we’re expanding the expulsions of migrants to Mexico.“These are not just numbers, these are people with individual stories with their own lives they’re trying to defend. It’s really easy to get lost in the big picture. We’re talking about people here.”TopicsUS immigrationUS politicsUS-Mexico borderVenezuelaHaitiCubaNicaraguanewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      ‘Aquí nadie va a elegir’: Ortega aplasta a la disidencia en Nicaragua

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      El presidente Daniel Ortega acalló a la oposición y sembró el miedo en los votantes, lo cual prácticamente garantiza su victoria en la contienda presidencial del domingo.MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Después de sofocar de una forma muy metódica a la competencia y la disidencia, el presidente Daniel Ortega prácticamente se aseguró la victoria en las elecciones presidenciales del domingo, lo que indica la caída de Nicaragua en un régimen autocrático.Ortega, en su búsqueda de un cuarto mandato consecutivo como presidente del país, arrestó a todos los adversarios con credibilidad que planeaban contender contra él, cerró los partidos de oposición, prohibió los actos de campaña multitudinarios y clausuró todos los centros de votación.La comisión que supervisa las elecciones quedó en manos de sus leales y no ha habido debates públicos entre los cinco candidatos restantes, todos ellos miembros poco conocidos de partidos alineados con el gobierno sandinista de Ortega.“No son elecciones, una farsa es lo que va a haber”, dijo Berta Valle, la esposa de uno de los líderes de la oposición que está en prisión. “Aquí nadie va a elegir. Es que el único candidato es Daniel Ortega”.El control casi absoluto de Ortega sobre Nicaragua, según los analistas, ha dado paso a una nueva era de represión y terror en el país, lo cual marca un giro hacia un modelo abiertamente dictatorial que podrían imitar otros líderes en toda América Latina. Su declaración de victoria supondría otro golpe a la agenda del presidente estadounidense, Joe Biden, en la región, donde el gobierno no ha conseguido frenar la caída antidemocrática ni el éxodo masivo de personas desesperadas hacia Estados Unidos.Miembros del ejército de Nicaragua preparan las boletas de votación para distribuirlas antes de las elecciones del domingo.Oswaldo Rivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSe ha interceptado a un número inédito de nicaragüenses al cruzar la frontera suroeste de Estados Unidos este año, ya que miles de personas huyeron del país después de que Ortega comenzó a reprimir a la oposición. Y más de 80.000 nicaragüenses viven como refugiados en la vecina Costa Rica.“Este es un punto de inflexión hacia el autoritarismo en la región”, dijo José Miguel Vivanco, director de la División de las Américas de Human Rights Watch, quien describió la represión de Ortega como “una película de terror en cámara lenta”.“Ni siquiera está tratando de mantener una especie de fachada de gobierno democrático”, dijo Vivanco del líder nicaragüense. “De manera flagrante y abierta, está decidiendo hacer de las elecciones una representación”.En junio, Ortega acusó a la oposición de intentar organizar un golpe de Estado. “No estamos juzgando candidatos”, dijo sobre sus críticos que habían sido arrestados. “Aquí se está juzgando a criminales que han atentado contra el país, contra la seguridad del país”.Ortega llegó al poder por primera vez tras ayudar a liderar la revolución que derrocó la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza en 1979. Más de una década después, fue destituido por los electores nicaragüenses, en la que se consideró la primera elección democrática del país.Esa lección sobre los riesgos del gobierno democrático parece haber marcado el resto de la vida política de Ortega. Regresó a la presidencia en 2007, tras conseguir que un partido rival aceptara una reforma legal que permitía a un candidato ganar las elecciones con solo el 35 por ciento de los votos, y luego pasó años debilitando las instituciones que sostenían la frágil democracia nicaragüense.Dejó claro que no toleraría la disidencia en 2018, cuando envió a la policía a reprimir con violencia las protestas contra su gobierno, lo que provocó cientos de muertos y acusaciones de grupos de derechos humanos de crímenes contra la humanidad.Mujeres se enfrentan con la policía antidisturbios durante una protesta contra el gobierno de Ortega en Managua, en 2018.Inti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPero la repentina oleada de detenciones antes de las elecciones, que envió a siete candidatos políticos y a más de 150 personas a la cárcel, transformó el país en lo que muchos activistas describieron como un Estado policial, donde incluso las expresiones leves de disidencia son silenciadas por el miedo.Hace poco, un cronista deportivo fue encarcelado por una serie de publicaciones en Twitter y Facebook que criticaban al gobierno, en virtud de una nueva ley que impone hasta cinco años de cárcel a quien diga algo que “ponga en peligro la estabilidad económica” o el “orden público”.Tras el inicio de las detenciones, Estados Unidos impuso nuevas sanciones a funcionarios nicaragüenses y la Organización de los Estados Americanos condenó al gobierno. Este mes, el Congreso estadounidense aprobó una ley que exige más medidas punitivas para Nicaragua. Pero esa presión no le ha impedido a Ortega eliminar de manera sistemática cualquier obstáculo a su victoria del domingo.Una encuesta reciente mostró que el 78 por ciento de los nicaragüenses considera que la posible reelección de Ortega es ilegítima y solo el 9 por ciento apoya al partido gobernante. Sin embargo, muchos se niegan a cuestionar al gobierno en público, por miedo a ser detenidos o acosados por los representantes del partido sandinista que están apostados en todos los barrios para vigilar las actividades políticas.La lideresa de un grupo de vigilancia electoral, Olga Valle, abandonó el país después de que el gobierno de Ortega comenzó a perseguir a cualquiera que hablara en su contra.“Había mucho temor de dar la cara”, explicó Valle. “Hay una restricción absoluta de las libertades, la ciudadanía está sin ninguna posibilidad de reunirse, de organizarse”.La primera aspirante a la presidencia que fue atacada fue Cristiana Chamorro, la principal opositora nicaragüense e hija de la mujer que desbancó a Ortega en 1990 tras su primera etapa en el poder.La policía puso a Chamorro bajo arresto domiciliario un miércoles de junio, el día después de que Antony Blinken, el secretario de Estado estadounidense, pronunciara un discurso en la vecina Costa Rica sobre la importancia de fortalecer la democracia.Cristiana Chamorro, la líder de la oposición más importante de Nicaragua, fue puesta bajo arresto domiciliario en junio.Inti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFélix Maradiaga, quien también aspiraba a contender contra Ortega, fue encarcelado días después, y permaneció ahí durante meses antes de que a su hermana se le permitiera una visita de 20 minutos.Su esposa, Berta Valle, exiliada en Estados Unidos desde que recibió amenazas tras las protestas de 2018, dijo que su marido ha perdido 20 kilos y que durante meses el único baño en su celda era un agujero. El político nicaragüense le contó a la familia que se le obliga a permanecer en completo silencio, excepto cuando se le somete a interrogatorios diarios. “Es una tortura psicológica”, dijo su esposa.A Maradiaga se le ha permitido reunirse con su abogado en una sola ocasión, rodeado de guardias fuertemente armados, añadió su esposa. Poco después, el abogado huyó del país.Para el mes de agosto, el único de los partidos de la oposición que quedaba en pie era Ciudadanos por la Libertad, un movimiento de la derecha al que algunos especulaban que se le permitiría contender para dar al menos la impresión de una lucha justa. Pero después la comisión electoral dio una conferencia de prensa en la que anunció la desaparición del partido.“Ni siquiera terminé de verla”, comentó Kitty Monterrey, presidenta del partido. “Cogí mis pasaportes y salí corriendo. No miré atrás”.Se escabulló al caer la noche, a fin de evadir a la policía que se había apostado en la entrada. Para llegar a Costa Rica, Monterrey atravesó ríos a pie y a caballo durante 14 horas. Cumplió 71 años el día de su viaje.“Esto no es un proceso electoral en absoluto”, denunció Monterrey. “Las elecciones se dan cuando se tiene derecho a elegir, pero todos están en el exilio o en la cárcel”.Nicaragüenses en Costa Rica protestan contra el gobierno de Ortega, en San José, Costa Rica, en septiembre.Mayela Lopez/ReutersEn Nicaragua no hay observadores electorales, solo los llamados “acompañantes” electorales, una mezcla de funcionarios traídos de países como España, Argentina y Chile, muchos de los cuales son miembros de sus partidos comunistas locales. Su trabajo, dijo hace poco una integrante de la comisión electoral, no consiste en “intervenir” sino en “ver” y “disfrutar” del proceso electoral.En todo el país hay pocos indicios de que se esté disputando el cargo más alto de la nación.Imágenes gigantescas de Ortega y su esposa, la vicepresidenta del país, se ciernen sobre las calles. Los sitios de vacunación reproducen estribillos revolucionarios con títulos como “el comandante se queda”. En los edificios gubernamentales ondea la bandera del partido sandinista junto a la bandera de Nicaragua.Pero además de un puñado de folletos con logotipos de los partidos de la oposición en Managua, la capital, no hay espectaculares ni carteles de campaña en los que aparezca nadie más.“A Ortega se la cayó la máscara”, dijo Valle, la esposa del líder opositor encarcelado. “Él no va a poder esconderse nunca más”.Berta Valle, quien ha estado exiliada en Estados Unidos desde que enfrentó amenazas del gobierno, habla en un foro en Miami en octubre.Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA vía ShutterstockOscar Lopez colaboró con este reportaje desde Ciudad de México. More

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      in Elections

      In Nicaragua Election, Ortega Crushes Dissent

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      President Daniel Ortega quashed the opposition and struck fear in voters, all but guaranteeing his victory in a presidential contest on Sunday.MANAGUA, Nicaragua — After methodically choking off competition and dissent, President Daniel Ortega all but ensured his victory in a presidential contest on Sunday, signaling Nicaragua’s descent into autocratic rule.In his quest for a fourth consecutive term as the country’s president, Mr. Ortega detained all credible challengers who planned to run against him, shut down opposition parties, banned large campaign events and closed voting stations en masse.The commission that monitors elections has been entrusted to his loyalists and there have been no public debates among the contest’s five remaining candidates, all of whom are little-known members of parties aligned with Mr. Ortega’s Sandinista government.“This isn’t an election, this is a farce,” said Berta Valle, the wife of one of the opposition leaders who has been jailed. “No one will elect anyone, because the only candidate is Daniel Ortega.”Mr. Ortega’s path to near total control of Nicaragua has ushered in a new era of repression and terror in the country, marking a turn toward an openly dictatorial model that could set an example for other leaders across Latin America, analysts said. His claim to victory would deliver another a blow to President Biden’s agenda in the region, where the administration has failed to slow an anti-democratic slide and a mass exodus of desperate people toward the United States. Members of Nicaragua’s army prepared ballots for distribution ahead of Sunday’s election.Oswaldo Rivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA record number of Nicaraguans have been intercepted crossing the southwest border this year as thousands fled the country after Mr. Ortega began crushing his opposition. And more than 80,000 Nicaraguans are living as refugees in neighboring Costa Rica.“This is a turning point toward authoritarianism in the region,” said José Miguel Vivanco, head of the Americas region for Human Rights Watch, who called Mr. Ortega’s crackdown “a slow motion horror movie.”“He is not even trying to preserve some sort of facade of democratic rule,” Mr. Vivanco said of the Nicaraguan leader. “He is in a flagrant, open manner, just deciding to treat the election as a performance.”Mr. Ortega in June accused the opposition of trying to foment a coup. “We are not judging candidates,” he said of his critics who had been arrested. “We are judging criminals who have threatened the country.”Mr. Ortega first came to power after helping lead the revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979. More than a decade later, he was ousted by Nicaraguan voters, in what was considered the nation’s first democratic election.That lesson about the risks of democratic rule appears to have shaped the rest of Mr. Ortega’s political life. He took office again in 2007, after getting a rival party to agree to a legal reform that allowed a candidate to win an election with just 35 percent of the vote. He then spent years undermining the institutions holding together the country’s fragile democracy.He made it clear that he would not tolerate dissent in 2018, when he sent police to violently smother anti-government protests, leading to hundreds of deaths and accusations by human rights groups of crimes against humanity.Women clashed with riot police during a protest against Mr. Ortega’s government in Managua, in 2018. Inti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the sudden sweep of arrests preceding the elections, which sent seven political candidates and more than 150 others to jail, transformed the country into what many activists described as a police state, where even mild expressions of dissent are muted by fear.A sportswriter was recently imprisoned for a series of posts critical of the government on Twitter and Facebook, under a new law that mandates up to five years in jail for anyone who says anything that “endangers economic stability” or “public order.” After the detentions began, the United States placed new sanctions on Nicaraguan officials and the Organization of American States condemned the government. This month, Congress passed legislation demanding more punitive measures on Nicaragua. But that pressure has not stopped Mr. Ortega from systematically eliminating any obstacle to his victory on Sunday.A recent poll showed that 78 percent of Nicaraguans see the possible re-election of Mr. Ortega as illegitimate and just 9 percent support the ruling party. Yet many refuse to question the government in public, afraid that they will be arrested or harassed by Sandinista party representatives who are stationed in every neighborhood to monitor political activities.The leader of one electoral watchdog group, Olga Valle, left the country after Mr. Ortega’s government began targeting anyone who spoke out against it.“There was a lot of fear of showing your face,” said Ms. Valle. “There is a total restriction of freedoms, people have absolutely no ability to meet, to organize.”The first aspiring presidential candidate to be targeted was Cristiana Chamorro, Nicaragua’s most prominent opposition leader and the daughter of the woman who unseated Mr. Ortega in 1990 after his first stint in power.Police officers put Ms. Chamorro under house arrest on a Wednesday in June — the day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered remarks on the importance of strengthening democracy next door in Costa Rica.Cristiana Chamorro, Nicaragua’s most prominent opposition leader, was put under house arrest in June. Inti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFélix Maradiaga, who also planned to run against Mr. Ortega, was tossed in jail days later and kept there for months before his sister was allowed a 20-minute visit.His wife, Berta Valle, who has been in exile in the United States since facing threats after the 2018 protests, said her husband has lost 45 pounds and for months his only bathroom was a hole in his cell. He told family that he is forced to remain in complete silence, except when he is subjected to daily interrogations. “It’s psychological torture,” she said.Mr. Maradiaga has been allowed one meeting with his lawyer, surrounded by heavily armed guards, his wife added. That lawyer has since fled the country.By August, the only opposition party left standing was Citizens for Liberty, a movement on the right that some speculated would be allowed to run to at least give the impression of a fair fight. But then the electoral commission held a news conference announcing the party had been shut down.“I didn’t even finish watching it,” said Kitty Monterrey, the party’s president. “I grabbed my passports and I ran. I didn’t look back.”She slipped out in the late afternoon, avoiding the police who had been stationed out front. To reach Costa Rica, Ms. Monterrey trudged through rivers on foot and horseback for 14 hours. She turned 71 the day of her journey.“This is not an election process at all,” Ms. Monterrey said. “Elections are when you have the right to choose, but everyone is either in exile or in prison.”Nicaraguans protested against the government of Mr. Ortega in San Jose, Costa Rica, in September.Mayela Lopez/ReutersThere are no election observers in Nicaragua, only so-called “election companions,” a hodgepodge of officials brought in from countries like Spain, Argentina and Chile, many of whom are members of their local communist parties. Their job, one member of the electoral commission recently said, is not to “intervene” but rather to “watch” and “enjoy” the voting process.Across the country, there are few signs that a contest for the nation’s highest office is underway.Gigantic images of Mr. Ortega and his wife, who is his vice president, loom over the streets. Vaccination sites play revolutionary jingles with titles like “the commander stays.” Government buildings fly the flag of the Sandinista party next to the national flag of Nicaragua.But aside from a smattering of fliers with opposition party logos in Managua, the capital, there are no billboards or campaign posters featuring anyone else.“Ortega’s mask is off,” said Ms. Valle, the wife of the imprisoned opposition leader. “He can’t hide anymore.”Berta Valle, who has been in exile in the United States since facing threats from the government, speaking at a forum in Miami in October.Cristobal Herrera-Ulashkevich/EPA, via ShutterstockOscar Lopez contributed reporting from Mexico City. More

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      Democracy, or Something Like It

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      No one is fooled when authoritarian leaders carry out fake elections. So why do they bother?This is an article from World Review: The State of Democracy, a special section that examines global policy and affairs, and is published in conjunction with the annual Athens Democracy Forum.The Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, who has most recently been in power since 2007, is running for a fourth consecutive term this year. Virtually all of his potential challengers have disappeared, been detained, or pushed into exile, while the independent media has been silenced and the main opposition party has been formally disqualified from running.Yet Mr. Ortega continues to keep up the illusion of holding free elections, imitating the tactics of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Last year, Mr. Maduro’s administration cracked down on dissident leaders, journalists and activists in Venezuela ahead of December’s parliamentary elections, which were eventually boycotted by the opposition. Mr. Maduro’s governing majority and allies won 91 percent of the seats in the National Assembly.Nicaragua is not alone in constructing a democratic facade, but Mr. Ortega’s methods have been exceptionally striking. “This is a dramatic escalation of systemic repression which we haven’t seen in Latin America since the 1980s,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.“There is still a desire on the part of regimes to have a fig leaf of democracy, however not credible that is,” Mr. Shifter said. He noted that the pretense might have been the excuse Mexico and Argentina needed to avoid joining in a recent Organization of American States vote denouncing the crackdown against Mr. Ortega’s political rivals in Nicaragua.These days, governments like those in Nicaragua, Venezuela and elsewhere that reject political pluralism are ready to go to great lengths to pretend to embrace democracy — primarily by imitating the crucial rituals of periodic elections.When election time comes around, authoritarians allow a certain amount of political campaigning, vet candidates (barring or even arresting those deemed too critical of the government), then make a show of counting ballots, all the while intending to hold on to power.A polling agent with ballot boxes in Lusaka, Zambia, in August. A challenger managed to win the presidency in Zambia by more than a million votes despite the incumbent’s attempts at voter intimidation.Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated PressBut faking elections can be a tricky business. Too big a victory can draw suspicion and encourage an angry populace to gather on the streets, as happened after the 2020 presidential election in Belarus. Too big a loss can be difficult to falsify, as was the case in Zambia in August when, despite the incumbent’s overt attempts at voter intimidation, the challenger, Hakainde Hichilema, managed to win the presidency by more than a million votes.Authoritarians have learned that they must carefully weigh how and when to interfere. Too much pre-election excitement can encourage too big a turnout, drawing more votes for the opposition. A low turnout is safer, because authoritarians have ways of making sure their voters get to the polls.Such intrigues require preparation, skill and money, all for an exercise that most citizens know is a sham.So why bother to pretend?Elections, even flawed ones, serve a purpose. The goal for autocrat and democrat alike is legitimacy — a right to rule that, in the views of most citizens in the 21st century, can be bestowed only by a popular vote, or at least the semblance of one.In other eras, and even now in some parts of the world, the right to rule could be inherited by a monarch, blessed by religious faith or sustained by an iron-fisted ideology like Communism. But where those options have been exhausted, democracy — or something resembling it — seems to be the best, and maybe the only, option for maintaining a monopoly on power short of outright dictatorship.“In the contemporary world, there are, practically speaking, no alternative ideologies,” Dmitri Furman, a Russian political scientist, wrote in New Left Review in 2008. He used the term “imitation democracy” to describe the combination of democratic forms and authoritarian reality then in place across most of the former Soviet Union.This formula was recently perfected in Russia, 20 years into Vladimir V. Putin’s rule, ahead of parliamentary elections last month.A woman voting in Moscow during elections last month. President Vladimir V. Putin and his allies deployed heavy-handed measures to keep critics off the ballot and to sway apathetic voters.Maxim Shipenkov/EPA, via ShutterstockThere never was any doubt that United Russia, the party backed by Mr. Putin, would come out on top. And indeed, the final vote gave the party 324 of the Duma’s 450 seats, more than enough to guarantee a constitutional, or two-thirds, majority (but fewer than the 343 seats United Russia took in 2016).Still, Mr. Putin and his allies took no chances, deploying heavy-handed measures to keep his critics off the ballot, while giving generous handouts to sway apathetic voters. Pensioners and military personnel, two crucial constituencies, received one-off pre-election bonuses, at an estimated cost of $6.7 billion to the federal government.Followers of the jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny, now legally labeled “extremists,” were barred from running, and some were put in jail or forced to flee the country. Popular candidates from Russia’s legal parliamentary parties — including the liberal centrist party Yabloko and the Communist Party — were pushed off the ballot under thinly veiled pretenses, ranging from faulty paperwork to allegations of criminal offenses. In St. Petersburg, a well-known Yabloko candidate found himself running against two people who had recently adopted not only his name but also his appearance.The Kremlin also took on independent media outlets, declaring that many journalists were foreign agents. And yet news still leaked about local officials who went to great lengths to gin up the vote for United Russia. Election officials were reportedly caught on tape discussing vote targets of 42 percent to 45 percent, presumably for United Russia, and government officials complained of being pressured by their employers to vote. In today’s Russia, these advantages are called “administrative resources,” all of which tipped the scales in United Russia’s favor.Similar tactics have worked in the past. In Russia’s 2016 parliamentary elections, officials in the city of Saratov did not take any risks. In about 100 of the city’s 373 electoral districts, the results were exactly the same: 62.2 percent for United Russia, 11.8 percent for the Communist Party, and on down the list. A local electoral commission official dismissed the suspicious results as a mere coincidence.Much has changed in the last five years. Unpopular pension reforms in 2018 have hurt both Mr. Putin and United Russia in opinion polls. Ahead of the September elections, the party’s popularity hit a record low, falling below 30 percent nationally, and even lower in the big cities.“United Russia’s polling is bad, but it doesn’t really matter,” Aleksei Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information, a Moscow think tank, told The Moscow Times in an interview in early September. A recycled Soviet-era joke made the rounds after the elections: “You pretend to hold elections, and we pretend to vote,” a retooled version of the old quip “You pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”But elections benefit the Putin government, according to an analysis by the political scientists Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes in their book “The Light That Failed: Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy,” published last year. Elections have been turned into national rituals, spectacles that create the illusion that Russian voters can play a role in politics. They can also test the national mood, district by district, and allow the Kremlin to measure the loyalty and competence of their local officials.“You had a hard time in post-Communist Russia finding out how local officials were behaving, figuring out who was reliable, who could turn out the vote,” Mr. Holmes said in an interview. “It is not just about loyalty, but also about who is effective. Elections give you new tools to measure performance.”Paradoxically, “a managed democracy,” a term often used to describe the Putin system of government, is not so much about pretending to be democratic, but rather about pretending to manage, Mr. Holmes and Mr. Krastev said in their book. “Rigging an election also allowed the government to mimic the authoritarian power that it did not actually possess,” they wrote. “In Putin’s first decade in power, organizing a pseudo-election was like wearing sheep’s clothing to prove that you are a wolf.”But most pseudo-democrats these days are reluctant to assume their inner autocratic selves: They are not sure how to be wolves. In Nicaragua, where Mr. Ortega lost an election in 1990 after five years in power, today’s government seems to have gone further than others toward becoming a police state, but most other authoritarian rulers are careful not to cross the line, at times at the risk of seeming ineffective.Typically, they promote their hold on power as a guarantee of stability, and a protection of the nation in a hostile, unstable world. And in some cases, such leaders do in fact enjoy broad support: Mr. Putin’s popularity rating in Russia is down from a high point of 88 percent after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but it still hovers above 60 percent, well above the ratings of leaders in Western democracies.These days, elections may be a necessary tool for authoritarian systems to hold power, but they remain risky, as was the case in Zambia, where the opposition managed against all odds to score a victory that was too big to deny, and in Belarus where the falsification of the results was so obvious that protesters came out to the streets.“Politics is about promising and disappointing and managing the disappointment,” Mr. Holmes said. “The special magic of democracy is that, although a lot of people may be disappointed, they have a hope that at the next election, they can bring in another group. By giving up the idea that another group can come to power, a lot of pressure builds up.”Celestine Bohlen is a former New York Times Moscow correspondent who covered the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. More

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      El temor se apodera de Nicaragua mientras el país vira hacia una dictadura

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      Una ofensiva contra la oposición por parte del presidente Daniel Ortega ha dejado a los nicaragüenses con una duda: ¿quién sigue?MANAGUA — Las noches eran lo más difícil.Desde el momento en que Medardo Mairena decidió postularse a la presidencia, un desafío directo al líder autoritario de Nicaragua, él tuvo la certeza de que el aparato de seguridad en algún momento lo alcanzaría.A lo largo del verano, Mairena observó cómo desaparecían otros líderes de la oposición. Uno por uno, fueron sacados a rastras de sus casas en medio de una represión nacional orquestada por el presidente Daniel Ortega en contra de la disidencia. La cruzada de este último por asegurarse un cuarto periodo sumergió a la nación centroamericana en un estado de temor generalizado.Desde junio, la policía ha encarcelado o puesto en arresto domiciliario a siete candidatos a las elecciones presidenciales de noviembre, así como a decenas de activistas políticos y líderes de la sociedad civil, lo cual ha dejado a Ortega desprovisto de un contendiente creíble en la boleta y ha convertido a Nicaragua en un Estado policial.A Mairena mismo se le prohibió salir de Managua. Las patrullas de la policía apostadas afuera de su casa ahuyentaron a casi todas las visitas, incluso a su familia.Durante el día, Mairena se mantenía ocupado, haciendo campaña por Zoom y monitoreando anuncios en la radio oficial en busca de pistas de la creciente represión. Sin embargo, de noche se quedaba despierto, con el oído atento a las sirenas, seguro de que tarde o temprano la policía iba a llegar y él desaparecería en una celda.“Lo primero que me pregunto en la mañana es ¿cuándo van a venir por mí?”, comentó Mairena, un activista defensor de los derechos de los agricultores, en una entrevista telefónica realizada a finales de junio. “Es una vida en zozobra constante”.Su turno llegó días después de la llamada. Unos agentes fuertemente armados allanaron su casa y se lo llevaron la noche del 5 de julio.No se supo nada de él hasta el miércoles, cuando se les permitió una visita breve a sus familiares, quienes comentaron que lo encontraron demacrado y enfermo, completamente desconectado del mundo exterior.Parientes de los candidatos presidenciales visitaron este verano la cárcel de Managua en donde se les retenía.Inti Ocón para The New York TimesQuienes critican el gobierno aseguran que la imprevisibilidad y rapidez de la ola de arrestos han convertido a Nicaragua en un Estado más represivo del que fue durante los primeros años de la dictadura de Anastasio Somoza, quien fue derrocado en 1979 por el Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional que encabezaban Ortega y varios otros comandantes. Los sandinistas gobernaron el país hasta que en 1990 perdieron en unas elecciones democráticas y cedieron el poder. En 2007, Ortega regresó a la presidencia.Tras 14 años en el poder, Ortega, impopular y cada vez más aislado de la sociedad nicaragüense en su residencia privada, parece determinado a evitar toda competencia electoral verdadera. Los cinco candidatos presidenciales que siguen en la boleta con él son políticos poco conocidos que tienen una historia de colaboración con el gobierno. Pocas personas en Nicaragua los consideran desafíos genuinos para Ortega.La represión, la cual se ha extendido hacia los críticos de todos los ámbitos sociales, no ha perdonado a ningún disidente político, sin importar sus circunstancias personales o vínculos históricos con Ortega.Entre las víctimas de persecución se encuentran un banquero millonario y un guerrillero marxista, un general condecorado y una activista poco conocida de la provincia, líderes estudiantiles e intelectuales septuagenarios. Ningún detractor del gobierno se siente a salvo de las repentinas redadas nocturnas, de las cuales su constancia ha sido la única certeza, comentaron en entrevistas más de 30 nicaragüenses afectados por la represión.“Todos están en la lista”, mencionó un empresario nicaragüense, cuyo hogar fue registrado por la policía; habló bajo la condición de permanecer en el anonimato por temor a las represalias. “Nada más estás intentando saber qué tan alto o tan abajo está tu nombre, basándote en la última detención”.La ola de represión y temores de violencia política ha empujado a miles de nicaragüenses a huir del país, lo cual amenaza con empeorar una crisis de migración masiva en una época en la que el gobierno del presidente estadounidense, Joe Biden, ya tiene dificultades al enfrentar cifras récord de inmigrantes que intentan cruzar la frontera sur.La cantidad de nicaragüenses que han detenido los guardias fronterizos de Estados Unidos ha estallado desde la represión: un total de casi 21.000 personas cruzaron en junio y julio, en comparación con menos de 300 en los mismos meses del año pasado, de acuerdo con el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional. Durante esos meses, otros 10.000 nicaragüenses han cruzado al sur hacia el país vecino de Costa Rica, según la agencia migratoria costarricense.Una iglesia en Masaya, en la que periodistas y civiles fueron atacados por integrantes del partido gobernante en julioInti Ocón para The New York TimesEl éxodo ha incluido a ricos y pobres por igual, provocado tanto por los temores de la escalada de violencia como por la preocupación de la acechante crisis económica en un país que se dirige a paso constante hacia el aislamiento internacional.En los últimos meses, decenas de destacados empresarios nicaragüenses han huido con sigilo hacia Miami y paralizado sus inversiones en el país, según entrevistas con varios empresarios que no quisieron ser citados por temor a represalias. Y se espera que la mayoría de los bancos internacionales de desarrollo, cuyos préstamos han apoyado la economía nicaragüense en años recientes, dejen de entregar nuevos fondos después de las elecciones, las cuales Estados Unidos ha señalado que es poco probable que reconozca en su forma actual.Algunos nicaragüenses se han marchado por temor a un regreso a la violencia callejera que traumatizó al país en 2018, cuando paramilitares favorables al gobierno y fuerzas policiales interrumpieron las protestas de la oposición y mataron a más de 300 personas.“Tengo miedo de que venga otra masacre”, dijo Jeaneth Herrera, quien vende pan de elote tradicional en las calles de Managua. Sus ventas se han desplomado en meses recientes pues, dijo, la incertidumbre política ha elevado los precios de alimentos. “Yo no veo futuro aquí”.Los hombres y mujeres detenidos, algunos de los cuales ocuparon altos cargos sandinistas, han sido acusados de crímenes que van desde la conspiración hasta el lavado de dinero y el homicidio, imputaciones que, según familiares y asociados, son falsas. La mayoría pasó semanas o meses en la cárcel antes de tener contacto alguno con sus parientes o abogados.Varias de las personas arrestadas son septuagenarias y tienen problemas de salud. Según los familiares, compartieron la cárcel con otros presos y no tuvieron acceso a doctores independientes ni a que sus parientes les entregaran medicamentos.Un general sandinista retirado, Hugo Torres, fue arrestado a pesar de que había dirigido un ataque que le ayudó a Ortega a escapar de la cárcel de Somoza en la década de 1970, con el cual es probable que le haya salvado la vida. El exministro sandinista Víctor Hugo Tinoco fue detenido y la policía registró su casa durante horas enfrente de su hija, Cristian Tinoco, quien tiene cáncer terminal.Cristian Tinoco, hija de Hugo Tinoco, exviceministro de Exteriores, en la habitación de su padre, tras un operativo policial en junioInti Ocón para The New York TimesLa policía también irrumpió de noche en la casa del candidato presidencial Miguel Mora y lo sacó a rastras frente a su hijo Miguel, quien tiene parálisis cerebral, dijo la esposa de Mora, Verónica Chávez.“Esa noche repetía ‘¿Dónde está papá?’”, mencionó Chávez. “Parecía que estábamos en un corto de terror”.Los casos en contra de los prisioneros políticos se llevan en cortes cerradas sin la participación de asesores legales. Esto ha significado que los parientes y la ciudadanía desconocen qué evidencia se ha presentado, lo que agrava el clima de temor.Quienes intentaron documentar el proceso legal —familiares, abogados, periodistas— dicen que fueron amenazados o enfrentaron acusaciones similares y, en algunos casos, se vieron obligados a huir del país o esconderse. Un abogado de uno de los candidatos encarcelados fue arrestado a fines del mes pasado por ser miembro de un partido de oposición.“Nadie de nadie sabe de qué les están acusando, qué exactamente está en los casos”, dijo Boanerges Fornos, abogado nicaragüense que representaba a algunos de los políticos detenidos antes de huir del país en junio. “Hay una destrucción sistemática del aparato de información no oficial. Al régimen le gusta operar en la oscuridad”.Luego de desmantelar a los partidos de oposición y encarcelar a sus candidatos, el gobierno dirigió sus ataques a otros con puntos de vista independientes: el clero, los periodistas, abogados e incluso los médicos. En las últimas semanas, el gobierno ha dicho que los obispos católicos de Nicaragua son “hijos del demonio”, amenazaron a los médicos que dieron la alarma sobre una nueva ola de COVID-19 y tomaron las instalaciones del mayor diario del país, La Prensa.La incertidumbre detrás de los arrestos aparentemente arbitrarios ha hecho que la situación sea más difícil de soportar para los familiares de las víctimas.Verónica Chávez, periodista y esposa del candidato detenido Miguel Mora, en su casa de Managua.Inti Ocón para The New York Times“Ya tienen listo su tablero de ajedrez y uno solo es un peón”, dijo Uriel Quintanilla, un músico nicaragüense cuyo hermano, Alex Hernández, es un activista de oposición que fue detenido recientemente.Desde entonces, dijo Quintanilla, no ha tenido noticias de su hermano ni de los cargos que se le imputan.“El jaque mate en tu contra ya está planeado, nada más no sabes cuándo te va a llegar”.Alex Villegas colaboró con este reportaje desde San José, Costa Rica.Anatoly Kurmanaev es un corresponsal con sede en Ciudad de México desde donde cubre México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. Antes de integrarse a la corresponsalía de México en 2021, pasó ocho años reportando desde Caracas sobre Venezuela y la región vecina. @akurmanaev More

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      ‘Everyone Is on the List’: Fear Grips Nicaragua as It Veers to Dictatorship

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      A crackdown on opposition by President Daniel Ortega leaves Nicaraguans to wonder: Who is next?MANAGUA, Nicaragua — The nights were the hardest.From the moment Medardo Mairena decided to run for president, in direct challenge to Nicaragua’s authoritarian leader, he was certain the security apparatus would eventually come for him.Over the summer, he watched as other opposition leaders disappeared. One by one, they were dragged from their homes amid a nationwide crackdown on dissent by the president, Daniel Ortega, whose quest to secure a fourth term had plunged the Central American nation into a state of pervasive fear.Since June, the police have jailed or put under house arrest seven candidates for November’s presidential election and dozens of political activists and civil society leaders, leaving Mr. Ortega running on a ballot devoid of any credible challenger and turning Nicaragua into a police state.Mr. Mairena himself was banned from leaving Managua. Police patrols outside his house had scared away nearly all visitors, even his family.During the day, Mr. Mairena kept busy, campaigning over Zoom and scanning official radio announcements for clues to the growing repression. But at night he lay awake, listening for sirens, certain that sooner or later the police would come and he would disappear into a prison cell.“The first thing I ask myself in the morning is, when are they coming for me?” Mr. Mairena, a farmers’ rights activist, said in a telephone interview in late June. “It’s a life in constant dread.”His turn came just days after the call. Heavily armed officers raided his home and took him away late on July 5.He had not been heard from until last Wednesday, when relatives were allowed one brief visit. They said they found him emaciated and sick, completely disconnected from the outside world.Relatives of arrested presidential candidates visiting the jail in Managua where they were being held earlier this summer.Inti Ocón for The New York TimesGovernment critics say the unpredictability and speed of the wave of arrests have turned Nicaragua into a more repressive state than it was during the early years of the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, who was overthrown in 1979 by the Sandinista Revolutionary Movement led by Mr. Ortega and several other commanders. The Sandinistas governed the country until losing democratic elections and ceding power in 1990. In 2007, Mr. Ortega returned as president.After 14 years in power, unpopular and increasingly isolated from Nicaraguan society in his gated compound, Mr. Ortega appears intent on avoiding any real electoral competition. The five presidential candidates still on the ballot with him are little-known politicians with a history of collaboration with the government. Few in Nicaragua consider them genuine challenges to Mr. Ortega.The crackdown, which has extended to critics from any social realm, has spared no political dissidents, no matter their personal circumstances or historical ties to Mr. Ortega.The victims of persecution have included a millionaire banker and a Marxist guerrilla, a decorated general and a little-known provincial activist, student leaders and septuagenarian intellectuals. No government detractors feel safe from the sudden night raids, whose only certainty has been their constancy, more than 30 Nicaraguans affected by the crackdown said in interviews.“Everyone is on the list,” said one Nicaraguan businessman, whose family home was raided by the police and who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “You’re just trying to figure out how high or low your name is on it, based on the latest arrest.”The wave of repression and fears of political violence have pushed thousands of Nicaraguans to flee the country in recent months, threatening to worsen a mass migration crisis at a time when the Biden administration is already struggling with record numbers of immigrants trying to cross the southern border.The number of Nicaraguans encountered by U.S. border guards has exploded since the crackdown, with a total of almost 21,000 crossing in June and July, compared with fewer than 300 in the same months last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. About 10,000 more Nicaraguans have crossed south into neighboring Costa Rica in the same months, according to the country’s migration agency.A church in Masaya, where journalists and civilians were attacked by members of the governing party in July.Inti Ocón for The New York TimesThe exodus has included the rich as well as the poor and is driven as much by fears of escalating violence as by concerns over a looming economic crisis in a country heading steadily toward international isolation.Dozens of prominent Nicaraguan businessmen have quietly left for Miami in recent months, halting their investments in the country, according to interviews with several entrepreneurs who did not want to be quoted for fear of reprisals. And most international development banks, whose loans have propped up the Nicaraguan economy in recent years, are expected to stop disbursing new funds following the elections, which the United States has said it is unlikely to recognize in their current form.Some Nicaraguans have left out of fear of a return of the street violence that traumatized the country in 2018, when pro-government paramilitaries and police forces broke up opposition protests, killing more than 300.“I’m scared that another massacre is coming,” said Jeaneth Herrera, who sells traditional cornbread on the streets of Managua. Her sales have fallen sharply in recent months, she said, as political uncertainty has pushed up food prices. “I don’t see a future here.”The detained men and women, some of them top former Sandinistas, have been charged with crimes ranging from conspiracy to money laundering and murder, accusations their families and associates say are trumped up. Most spent weeks, or months, in jail before any communication with relatives or lawyers.Several of those arrested are in their 70s and have health problems. They were put in the same jail as other prisoners, relatives said, and denied access to independent doctors or to medicines delivered by relatives.A retired Sandinista general, Hugo Torres, was arrested despite having staged a raid that helped Mr. Ortega break out of Mr. Somoza’s jail in the 1970s, potentially saving his life. The former Sandinista minister Víctor Hugo Tinoco was detained and his house ransacked for hours by the police in front of his daughter, Cristian Tinoco, who has terminal cancer.Cristian Tinoco, the daughter of Hugo Tinoco, a former vice foreign minister,  in his room after a police raid in June. Inti Ocón for The New York TimesThe police also smashed into the presidential candidate Miguel Mora’s home at night and dragged him out in the presence of his son Miguel, who has cerebral palsy, said Mr. Mora’s wife, Verónica Chávez.“He kept repeating that night, ‘Where is Papa?’” Ms. Chávez said. “It felt like living in a horror movie.”The cases against the political prisoners are being heard in closed courts without the presence of legal counsel. This has left their relatives and the public in the dark about the evidence presented, adding to the climate of fear.Those who tried documenting the legal process — relatives, lawyers, journalists — say they were threatened or faced with similar accusations, and in some cases forced to flee the country or go into hiding. A lawyer for one of the jailed candidates was himself arrested late last month for being a member of an opposition party.“Absolutely no one has any idea what they are accused of, or what’s in their cases,” said Boanerges Fornos, a Nicaraguan lawyer who represented some of the detained politicians before fleeing the country in June. “There’s a systematic destruction of all nonofficial sources of information. The regime likes to operate in the dark.”After dismantling opposition parties and jailing their candidates, the government shifted its attacks to others with independent views: the clergy, journalists, lawyers, even doctors. In the past few weeks, the government has called Nicaragua’s Catholic bishops “children of demons,” threatened the medics who raised alarm about a new Covid-19 wave and taken over the installations of the country’s biggest newspaper, La Prensa.The uncertainty behind the seemingly arbitrary arrests has made the situation harder to bear for the victims’ families.Verónica Chávez, a journalist and the wife of the detained candidate Miguel Mora, at her home in Managua.Inti Ocón for The New York Times“They have their chess board already set up, and you’re just a pawn on it,” said Uriel Quintanilla, a Nicaraguan musician whose brother Alex Hernández, an opposition activist, was recently detained.Since then, Mr. Quintanilla said, he has not heard news of his brother or the charges against him.“The check and mate against you have already been planned out,” he said. “We merely don’t know at what moment it will come.”Alex Villegas contributed reporting from San José, Costa Rica. More

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      in World Politics

      The US Must Pay Attention to Displaced Nicaraguans

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      The Biden administration has made it clear that US engagement with the Western Hemisphere is a priority. Much of its early focus has been on Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, as forced displacement from these countries is such a pressing concern. But a worrying crackdown in Nicaragua is going largely unnoticed. Nicaragua’s political crisis could soon have major humanitarian consequences and further destabilize an already fragile situation in the region. The United States must act.  

      Nicaragua’s latest crisis began in 2018 with a small demonstration against President Daniel Ortega’s changes to the nation’s pension system. Since then, Ortega and pro-government groups have waged a brutal crackdown on protesters, leaving more than 300 people dead and over 2,000 injured.

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      The situation is becoming increasingly alarming in the run-up to the presidential election on November 7. Last month, Ortega’s government carried out sweeping arrests of top opposition leaders and silenced dissenting voices. There is almost no likelihood of a free and fair election later this year. The government’s actions have also contributed to Nicaragua’s perilous economic situation, which could impede the country’s COVID-19 recovery. Only 2.5% of the Nicaraguan population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and even fewer have received only one dose.

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      Political repression and economic despair have forced over 100,000 Nicaraguans to flee the country. Costa Rica has generously hosted nearly 80% of those who left. Thousands more have gone to Mexico, Panama and the United States. In fact, apprehensions of Nicaraguans at the US southern border increased by 670% between January and May of this year. A recent CID Gallup (Interdisciplinary Development Consultants, Inc.) survey revealed that nearly two out of every three Nicaraguans still in the country want to migrate to the United States, Spain or Canada, due mainly to Nicaragua’s sociopolitical crisis.

      Though Nicaraguan refugees and asylum seekers have been generally well-received by their neighbors, the Costa Rican system is under strain as more Nicaraguans — as well as Venezuelans, Cubans and other asylum seekers — seek protection. Nicaraguans in Costa Rica also face barriers to full economic integration and were hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many lost jobs in the informal economy and more than three-quarters of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica are experiencing immense hunger. Even more alarming, nearly 60,000 Nicaraguans in Costa Rica made the harrowing decision to return home as opposed to continue living in their host country with limited support.  

      Take Notice of Nicaragua

      The United States should take several steps to address the ongoing displacement and suffering of Nicaraguans.  

      First, the Biden administration should support Costa Rica in its efforts to receive, protect and integrate Nicaraguans. During a recent visit to Costa Rica, Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a valuable signal of US engagement. The administration should convey strong public support for Costa Rica, as a democratic leader in the region that is making serious efforts to provide safety to those in need.

      The US government should also look for opportunities — directly or through international organizations like the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) — to support Costa Rica’s asylum system and continue to strongly back the Comprehensive Regional Protection and Solutions Framework (MIRPS), the regional initiative to address forced displacement in Central America and Mexico.

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      Second, as Costa Rica steps up the provision of COVID vaccines for its population, the Biden administration should explore with agencies, such as UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the provision of humanitarian aid to the Costa Rican government bodies and civil society groups supporting the needs of Nicaraguans receiving protection in Costa Rica.

      The administration recently announced its plan to distribute approximately 6 million vaccines through the COVAX initiative to Latin American countries, including Costa Rica. This is a welcomed step in supporting Costa Rica during this tenuous time. Yet Washington could go further by supporting assistance to address job losses and food insecurity that Nicaraguans in Costa Rica have faced amid the pandemic, as well as efforts to ensure that these vulnerable individuals remain protected while they await their vaccinations.

      Third, the Biden administration must comply with its own laws and international obligations by permitting Nicaraguans fleeing political persecution to seek asylum at the US southern border with Mexico. The US should commit to ending a near-complete ban on asylum applications and stop sending people back to dangerous situations. Nicaraguan asylum seekers should have their claims assessed — with access to counsel and without being subjected to detention.  

      As the situation in Nicaragua becomes increasingly dire, these measures would be a step in the right direction and would have a positive impact on displaced Nicaraguans, the government of Costa Rica and the region.   

      *[Rachel Schmidtke is the advocate for Latin America and Irla Atanda is the special assistant to the president at Refugees International.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Daniel Ortega está destrozando el sueño nicaragüense

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      ¿Vendrán por mí? ¿Qué se sentirá ser encarcelada por la misma gente con la que peleé hombro a hombro para derrocar la dictadura de 45 años de los Somoza en Nicaragua, mi país?En 1970, me uní a la resistencia urbana clandestina del Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, conocido como FSLN. Tenía 20 años. La larga y sangrienta lucha para librarnos de Anastasio Somoza Debayle ahora es un recuerdo que produce un orgullo agridulce. Alguna vez fui parte de una generación joven y valiente dispuesta a morir por la libertad. De los diez compañeros que estaban en mi célula clandestina, tan solo sobrevivimos dos. El 20 de julio de 1979, tres días después de que Somoza fue expulsado gracias a una insurrección popular, entré caminando a su búnker en una colina desde donde se veía Managua, llena del sentimiento de haber logrado lo imposible.Ninguna de esas ilusiones sobrevive el día de hoy. En retrospectiva, para mí está claro que Nicaragua también pagó un costo demasiado alto por esa revolución. Sus jóvenes líderes se enamoraron demasiado de sí mismos; pensaron que podíamos superar todos los obstáculos y crear una utopía socialista.Miles murieron para derrocar a Anastasio Somoza y muchos más perdieron la vida en la guerra de los contras que le siguió. Ahora, el hombre que alguna vez fue elegido para representar nuestra esperanza de cambio, Daniel Ortega, se ha convertido en otro tirano. Junto con su excéntrica esposa, Rosario Murillo, gobiernan Nicaragua con puño de hierro.Ahora que las elecciones de noviembre se acercan cada vez más, la pareja parece poseída por el miedo de perder el poder. Atacan y encarcelan a quien consideren un obstáculo para ellos. En las últimas semanas, encarcelaron a seis candidatos presidenciales y arrestaron a muchas personas más, entre ellas a figuras revolucionarias prominentes que alguna vez fueron sus aliadas. El mes pasado, incluso fueron tras mi hermano. Para evitar ser capturado, huyó de Nicaragua. No estaba paranoico: tan solo unos días más tarde, el 17 de junio, más de una veintena de policías armados hicieron una redada en su casa; lo estaban buscando. Su esposa estaba sola. Buscaron en cada rincón y se fueron después de cinco horas.La noche siguiente varios hombres enmascarados y armados con cuchillos y un rifle entraron a robar a su casa. Se escuchó a uno de ellos decir que era un “segundo operativo”. Otro amenazó con matar a su esposa y violar a mi sobrina, que había llegado para pasar la noche con su madre. Ortega y Murillo parecen estar usando la forma más cruda de terror para intimidar a sus opositores políticos.En lo personal, nunca admiré a Ortega. A mí siempre me pareció un hombre mediocre e hipócrita, pero su experiencia en la calle le permitió aventajar a muchos de sus compañeros.En 1979, fue la cabeza del primer gobierno sandinista y el presidente de 1984 a 1990. La derrota frente a Violeta Chamorro en las elecciones de 1990 dejó una cicatriz en la psique de Ortega. Regresar al poder se volvió su única ambición. Después del fracaso electoral, muchos de nosotros quisimos modernizar el movimiento sandinista. Ortega no aceptó nada de eso. Consideró nuestros intentos de democratizar el partido como una amenaza a su control. A quienes no estuvimos de acuerdo con él nos acusó de venderle el alma a Estados Unidos, y se rodeó de aduladores. Su esposa se puso de su lado aun después de que su hija acusó a Ortega, su padrastro, de haber abusado sexualmente de ella a la edad de 11 años, un escándalo que habría sido el fin de la carrera de otro político.De hecho, Murillo, a quien se le ha caracterizado como una Lady Macbeth tropical, renovó la imagen de Ortega con astucia luego de que este perdió dos elecciones más. Sus ideas New Age aparecieron en símbolos de amor y paz y pancartas pintadas con colores psicodélicos. De manera muy conveniente, Ortega y su esposa se metamorfosearon en católicos devotos tras décadas de ateísmo revolucionario. Para tener a la Iglesia católica más de su lado, su némesis en la década de 1980, Ortega accedió a respaldar una prohibición total al aborto. También firmó en 1999 un pacto con el presidente Arnoldo Alemán, quien luego fue declarado culpable de corrupción, para llenar puestos de gobierno con cantidades iguales de partidarios. A cambio, el Partido Liberal Constitucionalista de Alemán accedió a reducir el porcentaje de votos necesarios para ganar la presidencia.Funcionó. En 2006, Ortega ganó con tan solo el 38 por ciento de los votos. En cuanto asumió el cargo, comenzó a desmantelar instituciones estatales ya de por sí debilitadas. Obtuvo el apoyo del sector privado al permitirle tener voz y voto en las decisiones económicas a cambio de que aceptara sus políticas. Modificó la Constitución, la cual prohibía expresamente la reelección, para que se permitiera una cantidad indefinida de reelecciones. Luego, en 2016, en la campaña para su tercer periodo, Ortega eligió a su esposa para la vicepresidencia.Ortega y Murillo parecían haber asegurado su poder hasta abril de 2018, cuando un grupo de esbirros sandinistas reprimió con violencia una pequeña manifestación en contra de una reforma que iba a reducir las pensiones de seguridad social. Varias protestas pacíficas arrasaron todo el país. Ortega y Murillo reaccionaron con furia y combatieron la revuelta con balas: 328 personas fueron asesinadas, 2000 lesionadas y 100.000 exiliadas, de acuerdo con la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. Paramilitares armados deambularon por las calles matando a diestra y siniestra, y los hospitales tenían la orden de negar la asistencia médica a los manifestantes heridos. Los doctores que desobedecieron fueron despedidos. El régimen impuso un estado de emergencia de facto y suspendió los derechos constitucionales. Se prohibieron las manifestaciones públicas de cualquier índole. Nuestras ciudades fueron militarizadas. Ortega y Murillo justificaron estas acciones con una gran mentira: el levantamiento era un golpe de Estado planeado y financiado por Estados Unidos.Las siguientes elecciones de Nicaragua están programadas para el 7 de noviembre. A finales de la primavera, los dos principales grupos de oposición acordaron elegir a un candidato bajo el cobijo de Alianza Ciudadana. Cristiana Chamorro, hija de la expresidenta Chamorro, tuvo un sólido respaldo en las encuestas. Poco después de que anunció su intención de contender por la presidencia, le impusieron un arresto domiciliario. El gobierno parece haber fabricado un caso de lavado de dinero con la noción equivocada de que eso iba a legitimar su arresto. Le siguieron más detenciones: otros cinco candidatos a la presidencia, periodistas, un banquero, un representante del sector privado, dos contadores que trabajaban para la fundación de Cristiana Chamorro y hasta su hermano, todos ellos acusados bajo leyes nuevas y de una ambigüedad conveniente que en esencia hacen que cualquier tipo de oposición a la pareja en el poder sea un delito de traición. Ortega insistió en que todos los detenidos eran parte de una inmensa conspiración apoyada por Estados Unidos para derrocarlo.Ahora, los nicaragüenses nos encontramos sin ningún recurso, ninguna ley, ninguna policía que nos proteja. Una ley que le permite al Estado encarcelar hasta por 90 días a las personas que estén bajo investigación ha remplazado el habeas corpus. La mayoría de los presos no ha podido ver a sus abogados ni a sus familiares. Ni siquiera estamos seguros de dónde los tienen detenidos. Por las noches, muchos nicaragüenses se van a la cama con el temor de que su puerta sea la siguiente que derribe la policía.Soy poeta, soy escritora. Soy una crítica manifiesta de Ortega. Tuiteo, doy entrevistas. Con Somoza, me juzgaron por traición. Tuve que exiliarme. ¿Ahora enfrentaré la cárcel o de nuevo el exilio?¿Por quién irán después?Gioconda Belli es una poeta y novelista nicaragüense. Fue presidenta del centro nicaragüense de PEN International. More