This is the transcript of episode 81 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.
ARIAS: Either you leave, you make the decision, then you leave, or they increase that fearmongering game of creating all of the what we are seeing right now.
GRESSIER, HOST: That’s Yanira Arias, National Campaigns Manager for Alianza Américas, a network of organizations led by migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Amid a wave of cancellations of Temporary Protected Status, she says Venezuelan, Haitian, and Honduran former TPS recipients are being detained and deported in violent immigration operations on U.S. streets.
I’m your host, Roman Gressier. This week: Salvadoran TPS recipients hold their breath for a last-second renewal, Nicaragua sells off exiles’ properties and suspends lawyers, and Juan Orlando Hernández plans his return to Honduras after a pardon from Donald Trump.
From the studios of El Faro English, this is Central America in Minutes.
Clock ticking for El Salvador TPS
TPS holders from El Salvador are living in a legal limbo, waiting for an answer on their protection from deportation. The Trump administration has moved against the decades-old federal program and stripped away protections from multiple countries in the last year.
Nicaraguans and Hondurans, some of the oldest TPS populations in the U.S, were among those terminated earlier this year despite ongoing litigation that has drawn death threats against a federal judge.
Podcast: Judge Denounces Death Threats after Halting Trump on TPS
In June, the Supreme Court gave Trump a green light to end the program in the case of Haiti, Syria, and a group of other countries.
TPS for Salvadorans is set to expire on September 9. Yet, work authorization is scheduled to end months earlier, on July 22. This has caused a chain of uncertainties for the beneficiaries of this program: what can they do and when?
On Thursday, July 16, President Donald Trump welcomed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to the White House. Bukele just cemented his candidacy for a third presidential term after scrapping term limits.
El Salvador is now one of the last four countries whose TPS hasn’t been terminated.
TPS was created in 1990 to give the right to legally stay and work in the U.S. to migrants from countries facing war, environmental disaster, epidemic, or other catastrophes. When TPS is cancelled, holders revert to undocumented status.
The Department of Homeland Security is legally supposed to announce its decision to extend or not 60 days before it expires. That should have been on July 11.
That window exists for a reason: to give people, employers, and local governments time to prepare for the possibility of return. Arias calls the lack of announcement “a well-prepared strategy” to “make life miserable for immigrants,” even those “following the rules.”
Crackdown on Nicaraguan exiles and lawyers
Now, to Nicaragua. Over the past two weeks, the Ortega-Murillo regime has intensified persecution by selling off the properties of exiles and secretly suspending an estimated 2,000 Nicaraguan lawyers, according to press reports by Confidencial and La Prensa.
Photojournalist Oswaldo Rivas went into exile in the U.S. after covering the country’s mass protests in 2018. In June, he told newspaper El País that his home was being offered for sale through a listing on a real estate website.
Nicaraguan political analyst Óscar René Vargas, who lives in exile in Costa Rica, also confirmed that his residence was turned into a restaurant in 2023.
According to the U.N. Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua, since 2018 the regime has established a pattern of confiscating homes, vehicles, land, bank accounts, businesses, and pensions from people in exile.
The press has been a primary target. Buildings belonging to outlets like Confidencial and 100% Noticias have been seized since 2018 and transferred to the Ministry of Health. The facilities of the historic newspaper La Prensa, confiscated in 2021, were converted into a state-run “cultural center.”
The Observatory for Transparency and Anti-Corruption found that by 2024, the regime had confiscated 135 properties owned by universities, NGOs, media outlets, and dissidents, worth a staggering sum of $250 million.
In early July, the regime’s Supreme Court of Justice revoked the licenses of hundreds of lawyers and notaries not affiliated with the ruling party, including those in exile and even former Sandinista sympathizers.
The U.N. group of experts gathered testimonies from lawyers who had been suspended. Most of them found out when they entered a courtroom or typed their names into the digital registry and found they were no longer in the system.
The Supreme Court has not made any official statements regarding the criteria for revoking credentials or confirming the number affected. The U.N. group said the decision undermines the rule of law and leaves the population “without the right to defense.”
There’s recent precedent for this. In 2023, the Supreme Court suspended the licenses of lawyers for their ties to the defense of political prisoners, civil society organizations, and regime critics.
Under Joe Biden’s administration, 15 lawyers who were suspended that year were also stripped of their citizenship and flown to the United States. Like others banished from Nicaragua, they’re now receiving little help from any country.
Hernández plans return to Honduras
DANIELA HERNÁNDEZ: We’ve received a number of messages and calls from people telling us that they want to be able to go to Palmerola Airport to receive him and see him.
GRESSIER: Daniela Hernández, the daughter of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández announced that her father is expected to return to Honduras on Sunday, July 26.
She said the public is invited to a gathering in the capital, Tegucigalpa, to thank God for what she described as “the miracle of his release” from federal prison in New York.
Former President Hernández was released from a 45-year prison sentence after Trump announced an official pardon last November, just days before the Honduran elections.
But Hernández still faces criminal accusations in Honduras. Prosecutors allege he was involved in fraud and money laundering in a case called Pandora II. Those charges have prevented his immediate return despite his release in the U.S.
Podcast: After Trump Pardon, Hernández Appeals to Court of Public Opinion
On June 26, a Honduran judge provisionally suspended the arrest warrant, ruling he has the right to appear before the court and respond to the allegations.
Hernández had sought the complete withdrawal of the international arrest warrant and the Interpol Red Notice before returning to Honduras. Instead, he obtained only a temporary suspension of the domestic arrest warrant.
Hernández, who like President Tito Asfura is from the Trump-aligned National Party, is scheduled to appear before a judge in the Pandora II case on August 3. The judge could allow Hernández to remain free while proceedings continue.
In late June, the Honduran news outlet Criterio also reported that, despite multiple complaints and the freezing of assets, no additional criminal charges are currently pending against the former president.
Despite his conviction to 45 years in prison on drug charges, Hernández has argued that the presidential pardon from Trump proved his innocence all along.
More recently, a satirical account on X posted a video claiming to show a march in support of Hernández’s return. But according to newspaper El Heraldo, it was actually recorded in 2019, when U.S. prosecutors charged his brother, Tony Hernández, with drug trafficking.
This episode was written by Megan Mandrachio, Leyrian Colón Santiago, and Gabriel Labrador. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.