Luis Manuel Chavarría-Galeano, a 48-year-old journalist from Nicaragua, is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge on Oct. 2 after being detained in Orlando on Sept. 14. Public reports do not agree on his current facility: the Miami Herald reported that he was moved from Baker Correctional Facility to Krome North Service Processing Center, while the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders have published conflicting custody information.
The case concerns both his pending asylum request and the government’s claim that he overstayed his authorized admission. The Department of Homeland Security said, as reported by the CPJ and the Miami Herald, that he entered the United States legally on Dec. 21, 2018, was authorized to remain until June 20, 2019, and stayed after that period. DHS said he would remain in custody while removal proceedings continued.
The identity of the arresting agency also needs qualification. The DHS account described the arrest as an ICE action, but RSF later said ICE identified it as a Customs and Border Protection arrest and corrected its own earlier description. The agency discrepancy is reported in RSF’s update; the available accounts do not resolve it.
An unresolved protection claim
Chavarría-Galeano’s wife, Deykel Santamaría, told El País that he applied for political asylum in 2019 and that the case is still pending. If removed, he could be sent to Nicaragua or Spain. RSF reported that Spain granted him citizenship through the carta de naturaleza procedure under Royal Decree 449/2025, while WLRN also reported that he holds Spanish citizenship.
Santamaría told El País that she fears for his safety if he is returned to Nicaragua. That concern reflects his history there: he founded the Café con Voz news program in 2012, and the program aired on the independent station 100% Noticias. During the government’s 2018 crackdown on independent media, police raided the station and arrested its owner, Miguel Mora, and press director, Lucía Pineda. Chavarría-Galeano left Nicaragua that year and has continued producing Café con Voz from exile, according to El País and the CPJ.
In February 2023, Nicaragua included him among 94 people whose citizenship was revoked and whose property and assets were confiscated, according to El País and the CPJ. He now also faces the possibility of being removed to a country where he says he was persecuted or to Spain, the country that later granted him citizenship.
Advocates and lawmakers seek intervention
The Inter American Press Association and 14 other press-freedom organizations have called for his release and an asylum hearing, the Miami Herald reported. CPJ representative José Zamora characterized the detention as part of a broader concern about immigration enforcement involving journalists. RSF has asked Spanish officials to provide consular assistance and work to prevent a return to Nicaragua, where it says his journalism could put him at risk.
South Florida lawmakers María Elvira Salazar and Mario Díaz-Balart have also urged authorities to distinguish between people accused of immigration violations and political exiles fleeing repression, according to the Miami Herald. Their statements, like the advocacy groups’ appeals, are responses to the detention rather than findings by an immigration court about the merits of Chavarría-Galeano’s asylum claim.
His case fits within Nicaragua’s wider press-freedom crisis. The CPJ estimates that 268 Nicaraguan journalists have been forced into exile, while RSF ranked Nicaragua 168th out of 180 countries and territories in its 2026 press-freedom index. Those figures provide context for the danger advocates describe, but they do not determine the outcome of Chavarría-Galeano’s U.S. removal proceedings.
