Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Wednesday described Nicaragua’s communist regime as a threat to the United States for its role in “directly contributing” to the migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border and for permitting a Russian military presence in its territory.
Rubio, during his confirmation hearing in Congress to become secretary of state, stressed the need to address the growing threat that the regime led by dictator Daniel Ortega and his wife (and “co-president”) Rosario Murillo represents to the United States. Sen. Rubio stated that the Ortega regime is not only eroding democracy in its country, but also challenging U.S. strategic interests in the region.
“They have literally put planes full of opponents and sent them to the United States and all over the world,” Rubio said, pointing out that “this is a great challenge for our national security, but there are even more worrisome aspects.”
“First, due to migration pressure. Second, because the Nicaraguan regime is allowing people to fly to Nicaragua without visas from anywhere in the world and then transit to the United States,” Rubio continued.
In recent years, dictator Ortega implemented a series of policies to “weaponize” migration against the United States, allowing hundreds of U.S.-bound migrants to pass through the Central American nation towards the U.S. southern border. Due to its geographical location, Nicaragua allows migrants to completely bypass the Darién Gap, a dangerous jungle trail that Panama shares with Colombia and the only existing land bridge connecting South and Central America, used by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-bound migrants in recent years.
Some of the policies included lifting entry visa requirements for most foreign nationals, signing charter flight route deals with several countries such as Libya, and charging fees and “fines” to migrants passing through Managua’s international airport to reach the United States. The “fines” have allowed the communist regime’s airport authority to overturn more than ten years of fiscal deficit.
Experts believe that Ortega’s “weaponization” of migrants is meant to pressure the U.S. into lifting sanctions on his communist regime.
Sen. Rubio stressed that Nicaragua “has directly contributed” to the migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border because the country “has become the entry point for people from all over the world because they enter without any visa, they charge you a thousand dollars or whatever is in force today, and from there you enter the migratory route and enter the United States.”
The senator also expressed his concerns about the growing Russian presence in Nicaragua under the auspices of the Ortega regime.
“The Nicaraguans have basically invited the Russians to establish an army in Nicaragua, in our hemisphere, which represents a threat to our national security that must be addressed,” Rubio stressed.
Ortega has publicly admitted in the past that his regime received Russian assistance to repress dissidents during the 2018 wave of anti-communist protests in Nicaragua that left over 300 dead.
Reports published in 2024 indicated that Ortega signed several agreements with Russia to have Russian officials bolster Nicaragua’s repressive apparatus. In March, the Ortega regime approved the construction of a Russian-made, -funded, and -manned “instruction center” for Nicaragua’s police force that local media and experts widely denounced as being a prospective Russian spy agency in disguise. The site, they argued, could potentially allow Russia to extend its activities “beyond Nicaragua, probably to other countries of interest in Central America and the Caribbean, but also to confront the United States more closely.”
A report published in August by the local newspaper Confidencial warned that the Ortega regime allowed Russia to install a spy center in a military base located south of the capital city of Managua. The spy center, according to the report, is being used to monitor embassies and detect possible “traitors” of the communist dictator.
Throughout the hearing, Sen. Rubio also denounced the Ortega regime’s growing brutal persecution of Christianity in Nicaragua. Sen. Rubio stressed that the Ortega regime declared war on the Catholic Church, which he described as “the last institution capable of challenging their power.”
Sen. Rubio’s hearing was briefly interrupted by individuals belonging to the far-left activist group Code Pink, one of which yelled “Marco Rubio’s sanctions are killing children in Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela” in Spanish before being taken away. Rubio joked that he was a special nominee in that he attracts “bilingual protests” to Congress.
The far-left group, known for its friendly ties with the socialist regime in Venezuela, had called for protests against Rubio’s secretary of state confirmation hearing for his support of “harsh sanctions” against Latin America’s three authoritarian regimes and for his “aggressive stance” on Gaza.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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