Hundreds of Lives Are in Limbo While U.S. Drags Its Feet

After three years in a notorious Nicaraguan prison for protesting President Daniel Ortega, I gained my freedom—but I also lost so much.

I am one of the 222 political prisoners expelled from my homeland by the Nicaraguan government. Since the civic rebellion of April 2018, the Ortega regime has enforced a police-state, continuously arresting dissenters. We were all subjected to sham trials and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Thanks to U.S. diplomacy, the regime unexpectedly released us on Feb. 9, 2023, and we were flown to Washington, D.C. To further punish us, however, our government took away our nationality. We are no longer Nicaraguans.

The U.S. State Department told us they would help expedite our asylum applications. With this legal status, we can access benefits like health care. But, a year later, we are still waiting. Some of us are on the verge of being unhoused, others are struggling to get stable jobs and put food on the table. The U.S. granted us humanitarian parole status, but that expires next February. No one knows what will happen next. We cannot go on like this. We need asylum to survive.

I wasn’t always an activist. I owned a shop in Managua where I sold and repaired cell phones. But I couldn’t ignore what was happening around me. In April 2018, senior citizens and university students started protesting drastic cuts to the pensions of the elderly. Police attacked the protestors and beat them in the streets. Soon, thousands of others joined the demonstrations. The Ortega regime ordered armed forces to shoot them. My brother, Marcos Antonio, was killed during a demonstration on April 21.

That was the beginning of my activism. I joined Asociación Madres de Abril, which consists of mothers and families victimized by political violence under the Ortega regime. We plastered Managua with posters demanding justice and marched in the streets—anything to draw attention to what was happening in Nicaragua.

Police harassed us and hunted us like prey. I went into hiding, moving from town to town, until I was captured a year later, on Feb. 20, 2020. I spent six days at the local police station where I was beaten and interrogated for hours. Prosecutors falsely charged me with robbery and assault. I was sentenced to seven years and eight months and transferred to the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary a.k.a. “La Modelo,” one of the most dangerous prisons in Nicaragua.

La Modelo was a nightmare for the roughly 50 of us political prisoners who were there. Prison guards targeted us and urged the other inmates to hurt us. An inmate broke my nose. Another stabbed me; I still have the wounds on my hands. They denied us medical care and family visits. My mother died eight months into my sentence; I was not able to see her. At times, I thought I would never leave there alive.

When the guards came in the middle of the night on Feb. 9, 2023, I was scared. They marched us out of our cells in handcuffs and took us to another cell block. I remember thinking they were going to line us up and shoot us. Around 3 a.m., several buses with tinted windows arrived. The guards led us outside and onto the waiting vehicles. We rode to the airport, where U.S. government officials were waiting to secure our freedom.

It is difficult to summarize our emotions on the plane. We were hugging and crying with joy. But there was also sadness. We had left our loved ones behind. In addition to taking away our nationality, the Nicaraguan government has since seized our homes, savings, and anything else we owned.

Life in the U.S. has not been easy. I have moved around a lot trying to find stable work. I spent eight months in Maryland working the night shift at a chicken factory; then three months in Miami. But I was forced out of my apartment and had to sleep in the streets for three days. When I learned of a job in Alabama, I went but it only lasted one month. Now I am back in Maryland, working odd jobs, living with some of the former political prisoners.

Our stories are much the same. And we are all tired of moving from place to place. Throughout our ordeal, the U.S. government provided us caseworkers for about six months, and we received some aid from the human rights organization, American Jewish World Service. But those dollars can only go so far.

We are so grateful to be safe. But we want to work, be stable, and build new lives here. For that to happen, we need the U.S government to keep its promise. We need political asylum. Only then will we truly be free.

Michael Samorio was raised in Managua, Nicaragua. Needing to work at a young age to support his family, Michael was a merchant and owned a shop in Managua selling and repairing cell phones. He and his family joined the Asociación Madres de Abril in 2018, following the death of his brother.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.