5 de May 2025
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Nicaraguan Rodolfo Joel López Jarquín was sent, in early April 2025, to the Guantánamo naval base in Cuba for deportation to Nicaragua, even though he entered the United States legally under the humanitarian parole program in August 2024, according to an affidavit from the citizen.
Lopez Jarquin and another Nicaraguan, Johon Elias Suazo-Muller, are leading a lawsuit, filed with a federal judge in Washington, demanding that he intervene on behalf of all immigrants sent to Guantanamo.
“I arrived in the United States from Nicaragua on August 7, 2024 with a humanitarian permit for Nicaraguans. I arrived through the program that the previous government (of Joe Biden) created for certain countries,” said the Nicaraguan in the statement sent to the judge and to which CONFIDENCIAL had access.
I flew to Miami,” he continued, “and obtained a conditional permit for two years. However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained me before my permit was up.”
“I am currently being held in Guantanamo. I am not sure of the name of the area where I am being held, but I have been told it is the ‘migrant operations center. I arrived at Guantánamo on April 5, 2025,” details López Jarquín.
As of early April 2025, some 400 migrants deported from the United States, mostly citizens of Venezuela and Nicaragua, have been sent to Guantanamo, according to The New York Times.
The first flight with Nicaraguan deportees from Guantanamo arrived in Managua on April 3, 2025. Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega assured, without giving details, that in the last week of that month another flight with deportees from the Guantanamo base arrived.
The April 3 flight departed Alexandria, Louisiana, with 100 Nicaraguan deportees, made a stopover in Guantanamo where it picked up another 44 deportees, so 144 citizens landed in Managua, according to information from The New York Times and a report by Thomas Cartwright, who tracks U.S. deportation flights since 2020.
Taken to Guantanamo under lies
López Jarquín said that, prior to Guantánamo, he was held atan ICE detention center in Pina Prairie, Louisiana, from February 10, 2025, until early April.
“On April 4, they transferred me to Alexandria and told me I was about to be transferred to Nicaragua. But it was a lie; they took me to Guantanamo the next day. It was really shocking. We didn’t know where we were until the plane arrived and we saw the military. People were horrified. We thought we were going home,” the Nicaraguan said.
López Jarquín’s statement was taken and certified by Marisol Domínguez Ruiz, an attorney with the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the organization leading the lawsuit.
The Nicaraguan migrant assured that “I have not been convicted of any crime in the United States or in Nicaragua. In early February (2025), the Louisiana Police detained me after a noise complaint, but, to my knowledge, I was not charged with any crime”.
“The police said they could hold me pending ICE’s arrival, and then ICE came and detained me. I have never been part of any gang. I have no tattoos,” he added.
“When I arrived at Guantánamo, I was not informed that I had the right to speak to a lawyer. We were only asked about any illnesses and then assigned to rooms with six beds,” he stressed.
