Foreign government is weaponizing illegal migrants to gain leverage against the Biden admin, experts say

The government of Nicaragua is using large U.S.-bound migrant waves coming through the country to force sanctions relief out of President Joe Biden, according to the Associated Press, citing experts familiar with the situation.

More than 260 charter planes believed to have carried migrants from Haiti have landed in Nicaragua in recent months, which Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is using to get sanctions relief from Biden, experts told the AP. In recent years, the U.S. government has increased sanctions on Ortega’s government and family as thousands flee his repressive regime.

“The Ortega government knows they have few important policy tools at hand to confront the United States, … so they have armed migration as a way to attack,” Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances, and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a group tracking the flights, said, according to the AP. “This is definitely a concrete example of weaponizing migration as a foreign policy.”

Illegal immigration at the southern border has surged under Biden, surpassing two million encounters in both fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to federal data.

Nicaragua attracts migrants from all over the world because it offers visa-free travel, according to the AP. Additionally, the Nicaraguan government is allowing charter airlines that use unofficial air routes to carry out migrant flights.

“Ortega is going to use this migration issue to say to the United States that we’re the ones in control. And if they want to stop this, they’re going to have to negotiate,” Enrique Martínez, a spokesperson for the dissident group Platform for Democratic Unity, said, according to the AP.

Once migrants land in Nicaragua, they are greeted at the Managua airport by smugglers carrying passengers names and photos that help them travel further north, according to the AP.

The Biden administration recently loosened sanctions on Venezuela as more Venezuelan migrants cross the southern border illegally. Ortega may see that as an opportunity to get sanctions relief himself, according to the AP.

“What (Ortega) is doing is taking advantage of things, but what it’s doing is making the path forward even more difficult for the countries searching for a solution,” Martinez said.

“As an airline and aircraft operator, we have no information about the intentions of passengers we are carrying. If passengers comply with the country’s entry requirements and are admitted, it is for the authorities, not the airlines, to follow up on their status,” Stéphanie Armand, a spokesperson for Sunrise Airways, which had multiple flights this week said, according to the AP.

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