“This is a poor country, but it has the simple things in life”
The Central American country is shifting from being a springboard to the USA to a place to settle
By 14ymedio
HAVANA TIMES – A quiet, discreet wave of Cubans has been arriving in Nicaragua over the past year. This time they are not just passing through; they are not coming with the intention of heading onward to the United States by land, like those who took the “volcano route,” nor to buy goods to resell on the Island, like the “mules” who became common starting in 2019. The tightening of measures under Donald Trump’s second term, which included fortifying the border to prevent any irregular migrants from entering, largely eliminated the Central American country as a “springboard”—but not as a destination.
“My husband, who lives in Miami, got us out of Cuba last year so we could stay here for the time being, but with how things are now in the United States, we’re thinking he might come here too,” says a woman from Havana living in Managua with her two children—a boy and a girl—referring to the uncertainty her husband faces with an I-220A permit that could lead to his deportation back to the Island if he loses his asylum case.
Nicaragua, she says, “is a poor country, but there isn’t the scarcity there is back home, nor blackouts, nor hours waiting for a bus. In short, those simple things in life that one should be able to take for granted.” She adds that she had no problem obtaining permanent residency, and that this makes it easier for the family to settle there. Not a minor point, given that Nicaragua is itself another authoritarian regime, led by Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, which has in turn driven thousands of its own citizens into exile.
Many compatriots share her view, although there are no official figures. What is certain is that until 2020 there were barely 984 Cubans in Nicaragua, according to data from the UN’s International Organization for Migration, and that this changed drastically when Ortega eliminated visa requirements for them—by mutual agreement with Miguel Diaz-Canel to facilitate the emigration of the discontented—in November 2021.
The vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of Cuban nationals who passed through the Central American country since then used it only as a transit point—nearly 300,000 crossed the US border in 2022—but Trump’s new rules changed the game. According to La Prensa last November, in 2025, from January to that month, 32,043 Cubans in irregular status entered Nicaragua from Honduras. That does not mean all stayed, but given the difficulty of reaching the US, the figure gives an approximate sense of the scale of the Cuban migratory wave.
Alongside Nicaragua, Costa Rica and El Salvador are also receiving Cuban nationals, as countless videos posted on social media show. “Those posts may create a pull effect,” says Julia, a Nicaraguan woman who has befriended many Cubans. “Everyone is surprised when they arrive. Since this is also a socialist state, very friendly with the Cuban regime, it’s logical to think living conditions would be similar—and they’re not.”
Testimonies across different platforms number in the dozens: small restaurants serving croquettes, baked pork ribs, and moros y cristianos (Cuban style rice and beans) without ingredients materials halting operations; young people selling roast pork on the street hoping to one day own their own place; waiters between 18 and 25 who “colonize” eateries and serve customers with enthusiasm and warmth. “These people are going to go far,” Julia believes, “because coming from humility, they don’t put obstacles in life’s way.”
And that’s not even counting highly qualified professionals. A broad spectrum of the Island’s community has settled in Nicaragua, from “millionaires who have opened large, fully legal businesses, like those who have almost completely taken over the Estelí tobacco sector,” says a knowledgeable source, “to people who arrive with barely enough to survive.”
In Managua, he ventures, “there isn’t a single hospital—public or private—that doesn’t have at least one Cuban doctor.”
“That accent is unmistakable and it’s everywhere,” says Darío, a Nicaraguan amused by this unexpected “Trump effect.” They are recognizable not only by their voices. “Today I ran into a couple of doctors at the supermarket (they were in uniform) filling two carts like there was no tomorrow, and they looked like Gulliver and his wife shopping in Lilliput, because they were both very tall and we’re a country of hobbits,” he jokes.
Darío continues: “They’re very well liked and supported by people here. It’s a workforce that arrives already trained and generally with a higher educational level than the national average.” That, he speculates, is why—even though Managua ended visa exemptions for Cubans at the beginning of this month—the visa remains free of charge.
“And if it weren’t for the suspension of flights due to the fuel shortage, Cubans would keep arriving despite the new measures, because the truth is it suits ‘the witch’—he says, referring to co-president Murillo—hence the wink of not charging them for visas alone.” In fact, he concludes, “if Cuba were to improve and those who are here went back, the blow to many small and medium-sized business owners would be hard.”
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.