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Luis’s story

Luis Galeano: journalist, exile, detainee

More than two decades of journalism, a forced exile and an asylum claim that has been waiting seven years for an answer.

Journalist

Luis Galeano, 48, has worked as a journalist since the late 1990s. At El Nuevo Diario, he investigated the alleged misuse of about $20 million in public funds between 2004 and 2008.

In 2012 he founded Café con Voz, an opinion program that aired on the 100% Noticias channel and that he still produces from exile, on radio and online. He has also contributed to U.S. outlets.

Threatened for his work

The persecution began long before his exile. In February 2011, Amnesty International issued an urgent action warning that his life was in danger: an unknown caller told him he had 72 hours to change what he was going to publish, or his family would not see him again.

Exile

After the 2018 protests, the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo cracked down on the independent press. On December 21 that year, police raided 100% Noticias and arrested its owner, Miguel Mora, and its news director, Lucía Pineda, who spent six months in prison.

“Luis narrowly escaped the dictatorship’s prison,” Pineda told EL PAÍS: he had left on vacation that same day. Authorities also filed charges against him, and a Managua judge ordered his arrest. Galeano entered the United States on December 21, 2018, and applied for political asylum in 2019.

Stateless

In February 2023, the regime put him on a list of 94 critics it declared “traitors to the homeland,” stripped of Nicaraguan citizenship and whose property it confiscated. The list also included writers Sergio Ramírez and Gioconda Belli and journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro.

The detention

On the morning of Monday, September 14, 2026, ICE agents detained him in Orlando, Florida, while he was working as a rideshare driver. Galeano has a work permit, and his asylum claim is still pending, according to his family.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says Galeano entered the country legally on December 21, 2018, with authorization to remain until June 20, 2019, and stayed beyond that period. DHS did not answer EL PAÍS’s questions about his asylum claim or say whether he would be sent to Nicaragua.

He remains in ICE custody in Florida. He has an immigration court hearing scheduled for October 2.

Sources: CPJ, EL PAÍS English, The Guardian, Infobae.

Timeline

  1. Amnesty International issues an urgent action after Galeano receives death threats over his reporting in El Nuevo Diario on the alleged misuse of about $20 million in public funds.

    Source: The Guardian

  2. Founds Café con Voz, an opinion program aired on the 100% Noticias channel.

    Source: EL PAÍS

  3. Police raid 100% Noticias and arrest its owner, Miguel Mora, and its news director, Lucía Pineda. Galeano, who had left on vacation that day, enters the United States.

    Source: EL PAÍS

  4. Files for political asylum in the United States. Seven years later, the claim is still pending.

    Source: EL PAÍS

  5. The Ortega regime includes him among 94 Nicaraguans stripped of their citizenship as “traitors to the homeland” and orders their property confiscated.

    Source: CPJ

  6. ICE agents detain him in the morning in Orlando, Florida, while he is working as a rideshare driver.

    Source: CPJ

  7. CPJ and the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) call for his release and urge that he not be deported.

    Source: CPJ

  8. Scheduled hearing before an immigration court.

    Source: CPJ