The Escalating Migrant Crisis and the Sandinista Game of Shadows
A week before Christmas 2023, a privately chartered Romanian plane was held up on the tarmac of a French airport. Concerns about human smuggling prompted French authorities to have a closer look at the flight originating in the United Arab Emirates filled almost exclusively with Indians from the subcontinent, among them several unaccompanied children, bound for Nicaragua.
Mass migration into Western European countries from Africa, Eastern Europe, and Mid-Eastern countries has been significant for some time. In the 1980s, coyotes (smugglers) smuggled into the United States large numbers of Central Americans at a time when the region was consumed by civil wars. These mass migrations are destabilizing and hurt the countries of origin. The significant masses of people from all over the world now coming to the United States in the last decade, surging in the last two years or so, are more than the work of the local coyotes. There are now complex smuggling intercontinental roads and bridges for even larger numbers of people. The scale of the matter is daunting, involving millions of people from all corners of the world.
The logistics of such operations are also enormously complex. The sheer scale of migration and the money involved make these operations a massive enterprise. They prompt one to ask who could muster the resources required to coordinate crucial aspects of this tragic human influx. The operations require a great deal of capital to handle the transportation, food, housing, and other necessities for such large numbers of people continuously.
Such a large scale suggests the involvement of state actors or organized crime at a greater scale than the local coyotes of the 1980s. It isn't happening in isolation. It's reported to involve a vast network of individuals and groups. These also include family members already in the U.S. and human smugglers. Most of these migrants at some point used to hail from Central American countries, namely Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, with a peppering of folks from Haiti and Cuba at times, but now they come to the U.S. (and Canada) border in increasing numbers from as far afield as southern Africa and East Asia.
The Crisis:
The volume of people moving to the southern U.S. border has greatly surged in recent years. It has provoked a crisis. In 2021 alone, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than 1.6 million people attempting to cross illegally. The number of people who cross the border is even greater, but the number of contacts with illegal migrants provides a rough idea of the proportions in which the numbers have increased.
Various studies and models have attempted to estimate the total number of successful illegal entries. The Pew Research Center, for instance, estimated that there were 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. as of 2017, a number that includes those who overstayed their visas and those who entered the country without inspection. We know that the surge has intensified in the last couple of years to record numbers. More than 2 million people showed up at the U.S. border in 2021 and in December 2023 alone, Border Patrol came into contact with over 302,000 migrants, a new record for a single month.
The financial scope of this mass migration is considerable. Estimates suggest that smuggling a single migrant can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000, depending on the origin and the method of transportation. Taking only the lower end of this range and multiplying it by the number of people apprehended in 2021 gives an eye-watering total expenditure of over $8 billion. Keep in mind, that this is merely the direct cost to the migrants themselves; it doesn’t capture the substantial expenses incurred by border enforcement agencies or the economic impact on the border states.
The investigation in India regarding the detained plane in France mentioned above reveals that "passengers reportedly paid between $48,000 and $150,000 to board, an Indian police official told AFP. Roughly 100,000 Indian nationals have arrived at the US-Mexico border in 2023, more than 10 times the number in 2019." If we assume the lowest charge of $48,000, the facilitation of moving 100,000 Indians in one year alone is $4.8 billion. In other words, it is a very big business. It is also a big drain on resources for US law enforcement.
The logistics of accommodating these vast numbers of individuals once they have crossed into the U.S. is also a massive challenge, one that exerts tremendous pressure on border states and places further afield. By last July in New York City, “about 40 per cent of the roughly 60,000 asylum seekers the city is paying to house are from Venezuela. Shelters and detention centres are often far beyond their capacity, leading to conditions that have been widely criticized.” Local communities at entry bear the financial burden, as public services like healthcare, education, and law enforcement become strained.
Furthermore, there's the environmental toll of this wave of migration, from damage to border habitats due to both the construction of physical barriers and the movement of large groups of people. So, while the human aspect of this migration crisis is paramount, its effects ripple out, touching all aspects of life in these border regions, at first, and in the rest of the host country subsequently.
Nicaragua's Role:
When the Sandinista regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, his wife, went quasi-totalitarian in the Spring of 2017, I tried to warn of the dangers of triggering another mass migration crisis at the Southern U.S. border coming from Central America if the Sandinistas were not contained. But I never anticipated the active integration of the Ortega-Murillo regime into the global human smuggling networks.
With Nicaragua often mentioned as a potential middleman in the smuggling trade, one has to wonder about its larger involvement. Who are the players behind the scenes? Would Nicaraguan officials be mere bystanders turning a blind eye for profit's sake or active participants?
How does Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, suddenly become involved in this global enterprise? It simply doesn't just appear out of nothing. Who connects the various moving parts of such a large-scale operation requiring equally large-scale organization and capital?
Airlifting 30-40,000 Haitians to Managua within a year and marshalling them to the U.S. border requires more than the procurement of aeroplanes and scheduling flights. It requires significant additional infrastructure such as ground transportation, shelter, food and medical supplies along the way at an equally mass scale. For reference, the distance between Managua and Matamoros in Tamaulipas, Mexico —the closest part of the Mexico-U.S. border to Nicaragua— is just shy of 3,000 km. It is almost 5,000 km from Managua to the California border at Tijuana.
If it were only Haiti and Nicaragua alone, one might suspect the help of their allies Cuba and Venezuela. But the global scale requires more logistical know-how and horsepower than the Nicaraguan regime can provide. It suggests state involvement, large criminal organizations, or both. Considering that the cartels already have large and elaborate smuggling networks in the northern Mexican territories, it is unlikely that they would tolerate competitors moving into their territory, even if to smuggle different “merchandise”: human beings. There are likely significant synergies between human smuggling and drug smuggling, which have not been openly explored.
The Sandinista regime has made its contribution to the enlarging pool of refugees seeking protection around the world in different ways. The number of Nicaraguans seeking asylum in Europe has increased by 50% since 2018. In 2020, the number of irregular migrants from Nicaragua to the United States increased by 35%. In 2019, over 70,000 Nicaraguans applied for asylum abroad, a 103% increase from 2018. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with 29.6% of its population living below the poverty line.
Nicaragua is not only producing migrants and refugees. It has become a key bridge for human smugglers. In 2020, the United Nations reported that Nicaragua has become a major transit point for migrants from Africa and Asia seeking to reach North America.
Nicaragua's role in this complex web is pivotal. It has a prime location in this migration matrix. Pinpointing the exact number of migrants who embark from or move through Nicaragua is an arduous task given the clandestine nature of the activities and the constant re-routing due to political or social conditions. We do know, however, that the number of migrants passing through Nicaragua has significantly increased in recent years.
Recently, there has been a migration trail often initiated in Haiti, with a crucial pit stop in Nicaragua before pushing up to the United States or Canada. Since 2016, data from the International Organization for Migration reveals an increasingly noticeable pattern of Haitians coming to Nicaragua en masse. According to these data, from 2018 to 2021, Nicaragua received an approximate flow between 30-40,000 migrants from Haiti.
The arduous journey from the poorest country in the hemisphere is not undertaken lightly, nor is it cheap. Most Haitians hire facilitators within Haiti who arrange travel up through Nicaragua. A typical quote for this hazardous journey can range anywhere from $4,000 to $7,000. More often than not, relatives already living in North America are the ones to cough up the necessary funds.
Additionally, recent air traffic data has highlighted an unusual spike in the number of flights between Europe and Nicaragua. These aren't your regular, scheduled, commercial flights, grey charter planes that predominantly fill the air corridors. Many are reportedly transporting people rather than cargo, with the majority of these planes landing late in the night, under the cover of darkness. This sudden influx of unusual flights neatly coincides with the increase in migrant traffic through Nicaragua.
Furthermore, it's important to note, that it's not just these flights from Europe sparking concern. Gaze eastward, and you'll find equally curious developments unfolding. An increase in flights from both India and the Middle East to Nicaragua has raised several eyebrows among investigators.
Unscheduled charters appear to be the new norm, with these flights taking off at irregular hours, often bypassing common layover spots. Planes might be taking off in the early morning mists of places like Delhi, or be leaving the sparkling cities of the Gulf late at night, only to appear on the Augusto Sandino Airport tarmac at the crack of a new day.
The landscape of these journeys offers up its intrigue. Air Traffic Control documents suggest that these flights are rarely rerouted due to weather or air traffic - tipping the scales further in favour of something more organized than occasional happenstance. Analysis of this information suggests that whoever is behind these operations, they've got an intimate understanding of the international flight network, along with the resources to make these journeys happen regularly. This suggests again the involvement of a state actor with capabilities beyond those of Nicaragua’s regime.
Finally, there is evidence of 'safe houses' being used across Nicaragua. These are locations where migrants are temporarily housed and hidden during their journey. These houses are often located in remote or impoverished areas.
With so much money at stake, it is necessary to ask who stands to gain from turning Nicaragua into a bridge for mass migration, and what role does the Nicaraguan government play in all of this?
The Lucrative Weaponizing of Mass Migration
Flying people from place A to place B, even if charging exorbitant amounts is not illegal, though there are typically plenty of irregularities and abuses that make the whole enterprise ethically questionable.
It’s not hard to imagine that the Nicaraguan government, especially the Ortega-Murillo couple, would not know about the large numbers of desperate individuals moving through their country's territory.
Given her propensity for being involved in everything Murillo considers of import that happens in Nicaragua, it would be impossible for the ruling couple not to know about the increases in international chartered flights coming in with thousands of people who then vanish. Rosario Murillo has shown an uncanny ability to keep track of a wide range of things from the minutiae of the national bureaucracy to the Miss Universe Pageant franchise. There is also evidence that the Sandinistas have spies everywhere, including in every Catholic Parrish in the country. In mid-December 2023, over a dozen additional priests were rounded up and arrested for mentioning the name of imprisoned Bishop Rolando Alvarez from the pulpit during Mass.
Various reports suggest that Nicaraguan authorities could rake in anywhere from 10-20% of the payments. However, this revenue is not necessarily all realised from direct payments. It comes also in the form of entry permits, airport fees, fueling services and maintenance, and providing supplies, logistical support and safe passage. The Nicaraguan police or military are either directly involved or are willingly turning a blind eye to these movements in exchange for large sums that are likely kicked upstairs to the ruling couple.
What is new here is the money-making aspect of it, but countries in the region allied to Nicaragua have been involved in funnelling large numbers of people to the United States to stir trouble in that country. Let us remember that Cuba weaponized migration when it opened the doors to prisons and asylums to ship their occupants to the United States out of the port of Marielos back in the 1980s, causing significant havoc at the time. Before ruining its economy, Venezuela also encouraged and financed large “caravans” of people to walk to the U.S. border.
One might also recall that in the 1980s, the Sandinistas were accused of facilitating drug trafficking from South America to the United States. These accusations were primarily made by the U.S. government, which was at odds with the Sandinistas due to their socialist ideology and alignment with the Soviet Union. The Reagan administration, in particular, accused the Sandinistas of using drug money to fund their revolutionary activities at home and export them abroad. Illicit and illegal international activity is therefore not outside the Sandinista wheelhouse.
Nicaragua has become a key force in fueling the migration crisis, and they have monetized it handsomely. The Sandinistas have three crucial motivations. The first is purely political. Get rid of opposition and all Nicaraguans who manifest any kind of disagreement with their regime once they have their way with them and their properties. Not mass numbers but a few thousand. The second is the swath of Nicaraguan nationals daring enough to seek their economic fortunes elsewhere given the precarious economic existence in Nicaragua. Sandinistas do not oppose them, and probably encourage them, as it relieves pressures on resources, jobs and the political situation. In 2020, the number of Nicaraguans seeking asylum in the US increased by 500%. These might be people who are days away from joining demonstrations and protests against the regime.
The third are geopolitical and dark commercial motivations. Nicaragua's regime allied with China, Iran, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela, has an interest in aggravating and helping to enflame the migration crisis at the southern U.S. border. China and Iran are likely the financial backers. They mean to destabilize American politics and make Biden look weaker and worse than he already does. They mean to wreak havoc. At the same time, the Nicaraguan regime takes a slice of the costs paid for smuggling for the facilitation of Nicaragua's territory and infrastructure to land and reroute the migrants northward.
Even though the Nicaraguan component in the migrant crisis has been frequently overlooked, there are reports of organized crime groups in Nicaragua being involved in migrant smuggling. There is no definitive evidence but the circumstantial proof is convincing, according to data from the Global Organized Crime Index. They show that the Nicaraguan National Police has been accused of complicity in migrant smuggling; and that Nicaraguan officials are involved in the smuggling operations even though the Nicaraguan government has denied any involvement in the lucrative migrant smuggling. Out of Haiti alone, estimates of 40,000 people flown to Managua paid an average of US$5,000, from which the Sandinistas might take as much as 20 per cent. That would fetch US$40 million. In the context of Nicaragua's ravaged economy embargoed or restricted by Europeans, Americans and Canadians because of the Ortega-Murillo's human rights record.
Who benefits?
There are incredible sums of money to be made for Nicaraguan officials, sums surpassing one hundred million, that are even more opulent in the context of the meagre Nicaraguan economy. Such sums offer great motivation to the key players and power brokers running Nicaragua. Here are a few names without whom such a vast operation in the small country could not be executed, and would necessarily have to know what is happening to some extent.
The first key figures in the Nicaraguan government potentially involved in migrant smuggling are President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President, Rosario Murillo. Ortega has been in power since 2007 and previously led the country in the 1980s. Their administration has been marked by allegations of corruption and quasi-totalitarianism, and they have a tight grip on the country's formal and informal institutions, including the national security forces. Murillo is known for her hands-on influence over the government's policies and key decisions. Her role in the alleged complicity could be significant.
General Julio César Avilés, the head of the Nicaraguan Army, is another key figure. If the government is involved in smuggling, directly or indirectly, the army would potentially be used to provide protection or logistical support for the operations. Finally, Francisco Díaz, the Chief of the National Police, could also be implicated. The police force would potentially be used to suppress any local opposition to the smuggling operations or to avoid investigations into these activities.
If the smugglers move 100,000 people a year through the country, an estimated US$100 million generated by those transactions goes a long way in Nicaragua. That leaves plenty for all of the above to get a good slice of the pie.
Closing Considerations:
Geopolitically, the greatest beneficiaries of the mass migration chaos at the US border are the enemies of Western civilization and the enemies of the United States. Besides the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, these include but are not exclusive to Cuba, Iran, Russia, China, and Venezuela.
Reflecting upon all this factual and circumstantial evidence, it is easy to grasp the magnitude of this escalating problem. The direct consequence is that the smuggling is prolonging the lifespan of the Sandinista regime, and therefore pushing away Nicaragua's awaiting freedom. By all accounts, the use of Nicaragua as a pivotal landing pad in human smuggling is considerably twisting the geopolitical fabric, not just of Central America, but on a larger, more worrisome level, of both Europe and North America. In the same way that Cuba pushed undesirables and spies alongside the Mariel refugees, other nefarious forces may be taking advantage of the chaos to move assets into the United States (and eventually Canada).
These intercontinental implications fortify smuggling highways, nourish international terror, and strengthen important rings of organized crime; they could destabilise established partnerships, foster strained diplomatic relations, and potentially trigger even greater humanitarian crises.
It is somewhat critical for the countries involved and international bodies to figure out ways to unwind the murky knot that binds impoverished migrants, opportunistic smugglers, and purportedly complicit tyrants in the Nicaraguan government. The longer the international community looks away at this juncture, the greater the resonating effects that can disrupt and jeopardise the hemispheric political equilibrium.