In a meeting held in Miami, the legislator heard the testimonies of Nicaraguan immigrants.
Foto:
John Moore / Getty Images
A group of Nicaraguans asked Florida Congressman Charlie Crist this Saturday to intercede to “redesignate” an immigration relief that currently protects immigrants from that country, and thus protect those who “flee from Nicaragua due to the Ortega regime. -Murillo”.
In a meeting held in Miami (USA), the legislator listened to the testimonies of Nicaraguan immigrants who in recent months have settled in South Florida, who recounted the difficulties they suffer in the US immigration agencies to regularize their situation. through political asylum.
Given this, the immigrants pointed out that it is better to expand the scope of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that the United States has applied since 1998 to Nicaragua, after the destruction that Hurricane Mitch left that year in the Central American nation, a benefit that has since been extended, but never redesignated.
This migratory protection, which the United States grants to a country that —among other reasons— is in the midst of an armed conflict or has suffered a natural catastrophe, currently benefits 14,300 Nicaraguans, but activists and community leaders estimate that if redesignation is achieved it would reach up to about 35,500 immigrants from this nation.
Organized by the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), during the roundtable the participants pointed out that since the 2018 protests against the Government of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, more than 120,000 people have fled Nicaragua.
“I didn’t want to come to the United States, but I had no other choice,” revealed Alberto Cayetano Valla during the meeting, after recounting that he was imprisoned for a year and four months in El Chipote prison, after being arrested for participating in the marches against government.
“In Nicaragua, the prison is the most corrupt thing that can exist,” he added, visibly moved.
Cristhy Gordon, from the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, traveled to the capital, Managua, to participate in the 2018 marches, in which, according to some organizations, at least 300 people died. Later, she had to return to her home and go into seclusion after receiving continuous death threats, according to what she told today.
“I was very afraid and it is the fear that many of us live with,” acknowledged the woman, who has been in the United States for three months and has had to leave her two daughters in Nicaragua with her mother, where even her house was destroyed by hurricanes. Eta and Iota that in November 2020 impacted Central America.
She explained that she is the only source of support for her mother and her daughters, and that if she returned to Nicaragua it would mean “surrendering to the regime.”
Crist, who is a candidate for the Democratic candidacy for governor of Florida, promised to support the request and make the corresponding arrangements in Washington to discuss expanding the scope of TPS to Nicaragua.
“They deserve to have freedom,” said the federal congressman, who criticized the damage and deaths that occurred in the Central American country during the Ortega government, whom he described as a “bad man,” but reaffirmed the support that the United States will continue to give to the immigrants and opponents in that country.
“(There will be) better days ahead,” promised the congressman and political veteran.
In statements to Efe, Crist criticized the position of the current governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, because while criticizing “the dictatorships of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua” he establishes measures that make it “more difficult for these people to have freedom,” in allusion to immigrants and political exiles.
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