ond to a request for comment. Following a request by the AP for more details on why Jarquín was imprisoned for a second time, a spokesperson for Nicaragua's government responded:  Thank you very much! Hugs. 

The Trump administration has long criticized the Nicaraguan government and labeled it a dictatorship, especially after authorities there canceled elections scheduled for next year. Just last week, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in remarks before the OAS that what was happening in Nicaragua was  intolerable. 

 Murillo and Ortega's dictatorship has no place in our hemisphere,  he added.

Despite that, ICE has ramped up deportations to the Central American country in recent months, according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, which said the Trump administration had deported 6,300 Nicaraguans between January and July 2026.

The organization documented that ICE had detained least eight Nicaraguan exiles who were stripped of their citizenship in a move observers say was intended to punish critics, the report said. Some of those detained had pending asylum applications.

Juan Pappier, deputy director of the Americas for Human Rights Watch, said the simultaneous criticisms of Nicaragua's government and deportations of those forced to flee its repression  makes Washington look hypocritical. 

 Nicaragua has the most brutal government in the Western Hemisphere, and any government critic who is sent back is at real risk of torture or persecution,  Pappier said.

--

Associated Press reporter Gisela Salomon contributed to this report from Miami.