RESEARCH STARTER

Nicaraguan immigrants

Nicaraguan immigrants are individuals who have left Nicaragua to settle in various countries, predominantly the United States, often in search of better economic opportunities, safety, and stability. Migration from Nicaragua has evolved through several historical phases, closely tied to the country’s political turmoil and economic challenges. Early Nicaraguan immigrants primarily consisted of those linked to the coffee industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with significant communities forming in California and New York.

The most substantial waves of immigration occurred after the Sandinista Revolution in 1979, which resulted in many fleeing the repressive Somoza regime and subsequent civil unrest. Notably, those associated with the Somoza regime, as well as families affected by the Sandinista government’s policies, sought refuge in the U.S. throughout the 1980s, leading to a sizable Nicaraguan population, particularly in South Florida. Despite the challenges of obtaining asylum and immigration status, many Nicaraguans continued to arrive, especially during periods of economic crisis in Nicaragua.

In recent years, factors such as natural disasters and political unrest have prompted renewed waves of migration, with many Nicaraguans reporting a strong desire to escape deteriorating conditions in their homeland. As of 2022, a significant number of Nicaraguans have migrated, with more than 180,000 crossing into the U.S., highlighting the ongoing urgency of their situation. Overall, Nicaraguan immigrants have established vibrant communities while facing various challenges in their new lives abroad.

Full Article

SIGNIFICANCE: Despite deep historical ties between Nicaragua and the United States, significant Nicaraguan immigration did not begin until after the start of the Sandinista revolution of the 1970s. In subsequent decades, Nicaraguans became one of the largest Central American immigrant groups, particularly in South Florida and Southern California.

Ties between the United States and Nicaragua have historically been marked by US political, economic, and military intervention in the Central American nation. In 1909, for example, the US government supported a revolution that replaced a liberal military ruler with a conservative regime. Afterward, the United States maintained a military presence in the country until 1933, when it defeated an uprising by rebel leader Augusto César Sandino. With support from the United States, General Anastasio Somoza seized control of Nicaragua in 1936. His sons, Luis and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, assumed control of the country and continued the family rule through more than four decades.

Early Immigration

Early immigration from Nicaragua to the United States was facilitated by the country’s political and economic dependency on the United States. Like other Central Americans, some of the earliest Nicaraguans who came to the United States were industrialists and workers associated with the nation’s coffee industry who began going to San Francisco, California, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

During the 1930s, Nicaragua’s repressive Somoza regime drove large numbers of people to flee the country. Many of these people settled in Southern California and New York. During World War II and afterward, many Nicaraguans found employment at US-based shipyards and wartime industries in the US-administered Panama Canal Zone, and many of them later moved to San Francisco. By the 1940s, Nicaraguans were the largest Central American community in the San Francisco Bay Area and second only to Mexican people among Latin American immigrants.

According to US Census data, 28,620 Nicaraguans were living in the United States in 1970. Many had immigrated after the passage of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which significantly loosened US immigration rules. Interestingly, most Nicaraguan immigrants during the late 1960s were women. Most of them were domestic workers who found employment through well-established immigrant networks in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Impact of the Sandinista Revolution

By 1979, Nicaragua’s Somoza regime had alienated most of its political base and was toppled by a leftist guerrilla organization, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The Sandinistas’ unsteady assumption of power over the next decade triggered the largest exodus of Nicaraguans in the country’s history.

The Sandinista revolution spurred three waves of Nicaraguan immigration to the United States. The first took place during the time of the revolution, when perhaps 20,000 members of wealthy families closely associated with the Somoza regime fled to Miami, Florida.

The second wave occurred during the early 1980s. It brought many non-Sandinista members of the new government coalition, along with businesspeople and professionals whose companies had been seized by the state or who found it increasingly difficult to maintain their lifestyles under the socialist-leaning government.

Meanwhile, because of the Sandinista government’s efforts to sever Nicaragua’s dependence on the United States and fears of the US government that Nicaragua would boost Soviet communist influence in the region, the United States launched a multifaceted assault against the Sandinista regime. US actions included a trade embargo against Nicaragua and support for a counterrevolutionary army in exile that was known as the “Contras.” By 1990, Nicaragua was engulfed in a severe economic crisis and growing violence, and the Sandinistas were voted out of power. The third wave of immigration took place during this period, and brought to the United States thousands of young men of all classes dodging military conscription, along with poor families fleeing the country’s harsh economic conditions and the ravages of a festering civil war.

By the time of the 1990 US Census, the three recent waves of Nicaraguan immigration had brought into the United States 202,658 documented immigrants and an unknown but probably substantial number of undocumented immigrants. Most of these people settled in South Florida, where the total Nicaraguan population in Miami alone was estimated at 175,000 during the early 1990s. That number made Nicaraguans the second-largest Hispanic community in South Florida after the Cuban people.

Nicaraguans fleeing the Sandinista regime did not receive automatic refugee status or asylum privileges in the United States. Indeed, of those who applied for asylum, only about one-quarter were successful during the 1980s. In 1997, US deportations of Nicaraguans who were not granted asylum were temporarily halted. However, during the following year, when the US Congress froze military support for the Contras and Nicaraguan immigration began increasing again, the government reversed its position and began treating Nicaraguans as illegal immigrants. The 1997 federal Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act allowed Nicaraguans who had entered the United States before 1995 to obtain permanent residency.

The exodus from Nicaragua continued throughout the 1990s and into the early twenty-first century due to the country’s shattered economy and social conditions. Meanwhile, Nicaraguans have become part of the flood of undocumented immigrants coming to the United States. Most have settled in the well-established Nicaraguan communities of Southern California and South Florida, but others have settled in large cities in Texas. According to the 2010 US Census, the number of Nicaraguans living in the United States was conservatively estimated at 348,202, as this figure failed to consider undocumented immigrants.

In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Nicaraguans in the country who had this immigration designation (many were initially given this status, allowing them to work in the United States without fear of deportation in 1999 after they emigrated from Nicaragua largely to escape the devastation of Hurricane Mitch). Though Nicaraguan immigrants under this status were given until early January 2019 before the protection would end, TPS was ultimately extended due to litigation; by that time, unrest and violence increased once more in Nicaragua. Between 2000 and 2021, the Nicaraguan-origin population grew from 205,000 (45,000 US-born; 160,000 born abroad) to 450,000 (220,000 US-born; 230,000 born abroad).

By 2022, Nicaraguans were migrating to the US in unprecedented numbers, with more than 180,000 crossing the border between January and November. Many of these individuals stated they would rather die than return to their country. Of Nicaragua's total population, around 10 percent left the country between 2019 and 2022. Additionally, between 2010 and 2023, the US population of Nicaraguan-born people increased by about 52 percent; in 2023, 46 percent of Nicaraguans were naturalized citizens. According to a report by Confidencial, nearly 100,000 Nicaraguans immigrated to the United States in 2024.

At the start of his second presidential term in 2025, Donald Trump focused on tightening immigration policies and deporting undocumented immigrants. By March 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security announced intentions to revoke TPS for immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, with some impacted individuals facing deportation within thirty days of the announcement. Of the 1,297,635 individuals (from all nations) actively granted TPS in the US in March 2025, 2,910 were from Nicaragua. Despite litigation aimed at slowing or preventing this action, TPS for Nicaraguan immigrants ended in September 2025. Further, the State Department imposed new visa restrictions for Nicaraguans believed to facilitate undocumented immigration to the US.


Bibliography

Dasema, Rebecca, and Jeanne Batalova. "Central American Immigrants in the United States." Migration Policy Institute, 14 Aug. 2025, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-american-immigrants-united-states. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Fernández-Kelly, Patricia, and Sara Curran. “Nicaraguans: Voices Lost, Voices Found.” Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes, U of California P, 2001.

Kopan, Tal. "'Suicide,' 'Catastrophe': Nicaraguans in US Terrified of Looming End of Protections." CNN, 30 Aug. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/tps-nicaragua-trump-immigrants-fear/index.html. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

"Nicaraguan-Origin Population in the U.S., 2000-2021." Pew Research Center, www.pewresearch.org/chart/us-hispanics-nicaraguan-origin-population. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Regidor, Cindy. "Nearly 100,000 Nicaraguans Emigrated in 2024." Confidencial, 28 Dec. 2024, confidencial.digital/english/nearly-100000-nicaraguans-emigrated-in-2024. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Salomon, Gisela. "Homeland Security Revokes Temporary Status for 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans." Associated Press, 21 Mar. 2025, apnews.com/article/immigration-humanitarian-parole-china-haiti-nicaragua-venezuela-c10f422939934cf8d1cf8a6f4dfc4610. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Solaún, Mauricio. U.S. Intervention and Regime Change in Nicaragua. U of Nebraska P, 2005.

"Temporary Protected Status Designated Country: Nicaragua." US Citizenship and Immigration Services, 25 Aug. 2025, www.uscis.gov/archive/temporary-protected-status-designated-country-nicaragua. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

"Temporary Protected Status (TPS): Fact Sheet." National Immigration Forum, 6 Oct. 2025, forumtogether.org/article/temporary-protected-status-fact-sheet. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Walker, Thomas. Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle. 6th ed., Routledge, 2017.

Full Article

SIGNIFICANCE: Despite deep historical ties between Nicaragua and the United States, significant Nicaraguan immigration did not begin until after the start of the Sandinista revolution of the 1970s. In subsequent decades, Nicaraguans became one of the largest Central American immigrant groups, particularly in South Florida and Southern California.

Ties between the United States and Nicaragua have historically been marked by US political, economic, and military intervention in the Central American nation. In 1909, for example, the US government supported a revolution that replaced a liberal military ruler with a conservative regime. Afterward, the United States maintained a military presence in the country until 1933, when it defeated an uprising by rebel leader Augusto César Sandino. With support from the United States, General Anastasio Somoza seized control of Nicaragua in 1936. His sons, Luis and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, assumed control of the country and continued the family rule through more than four decades.

Early Immigration

Early immigration from Nicaragua to the United States was facilitated by the country’s political and economic dependency on the United States. Like other Central Americans, some of the earliest Nicaraguans who came to the United States were industrialists and workers associated with the nation’s coffee industry who began going to San Francisco, California, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

During the 1930s, Nicaragua’s repressive Somoza regime drove large numbers of people to flee the country. Many of these people settled in Southern California and New York. During World War II and afterward, many Nicaraguans found employment at US-based shipyards and wartime industries in the US-administered Panama Canal Zone, and many of them later moved to San Francisco. By the 1940s, Nicaraguans were the largest Central American community in the San Francisco Bay Area and second only to Mexican people among Latin American immigrants.

According to US Census data, 28,620 Nicaraguans were living in the United States in 1970. Many had immigrated after the passage of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which significantly loosened US immigration rules. Interestingly, most Nicaraguan immigrants during the late 1960s were women. Most of them were domestic workers who found employment through well-established immigrant networks in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Impact of the Sandinista Revolution

By 1979, Nicaragua’s Somoza regime had alienated most of its political base and was toppled by a leftist guerrilla organization, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The Sandinistas’ unsteady assumption of power over the next decade triggered the largest exodus of Nicaraguans in the country’s history.

The Sandinista revolution spurred three waves of Nicaraguan immigration to the United States. The first took place during the time of the revolution, when perhaps 20,000 members of wealthy families closely associated with the Somoza regime fled to Miami, Florida.

The second wave occurred during the early 1980s. It brought many non-Sandinista members of the new government coalition, along with businesspeople and professionals whose companies had been seized by the state or who found it increasingly difficult to maintain their lifestyles under the socialist-leaning government.

Meanwhile, because of the Sandinista government’s efforts to sever Nicaragua’s dependence on the United States and fears of the US government that Nicaragua would boost Soviet communist influence in the region, the United States launched a multifaceted assault against the Sandinista regime. US actions included a trade embargo against Nicaragua and support for a counterrevolutionary army in exile that was known as the “Contras.” By 1990, Nicaragua was engulfed in a severe economic crisis and growing violence, and the Sandinistas were voted out of power. The third wave of immigration took place during this period, and brought to the United States thousands of young men of all classes dodging military conscription, along with poor families fleeing the country’s harsh economic conditions and the ravages of a festering civil war.

By the time of the 1990 US Census, the three recent waves of Nicaraguan immigration had brought into the United States 202,658 documented immigrants and an unknown but probably substantial number of undocumented immigrants. Most of these people settled in South Florida, where the total Nicaraguan population in Miami alone was estimated at 175,000 during the early 1990s. That number made Nicaraguans the second-largest Hispanic community in South Florida after the Cuban people.

Nicaraguans fleeing the Sandinista regime did not receive automatic refugee status or asylum privileges in the United States. Indeed, of those who applied for asylum, only about one-quarter were successful during the 1980s. In 1997, US deportations of Nicaraguans who were not granted asylum were temporarily halted. However, during the following year, when the US Congress froze military support for the Contras and Nicaraguan immigration began increasing again, the government reversed its position and began treating Nicaraguans as illegal immigrants. The 1997 federal Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act allowed Nicaraguans who had entered the United States before 1995 to obtain permanent residency.

The exodus from Nicaragua continued throughout the 1990s and into the early twenty-first century due to the country’s shattered economy and social conditions. Meanwhile, Nicaraguans have become part of the flood of undocumented immigrants coming to the United States. Most have settled in the well-established Nicaraguan communities of Southern California and South Florida, but others have settled in large cities in Texas. According to the 2010 US Census, the number of Nicaraguans living in the United States was conservatively estimated at 348,202, as this figure failed to consider undocumented immigrants.

In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Nicaraguans in the country who had this immigration designation (many were initially given this status, allowing them to work in the United States without fear of deportation in 1999 after they emigrated from Nicaragua largely to escape the devastation of Hurricane Mitch). Though Nicaraguan immigrants under this status were given until early January 2019 before the protection would end, TPS was ultimately extended due to litigation; by that time, unrest and violence increased once more in Nicaragua. Between 2000 and 2021, the Nicaraguan-origin population grew from 205,000 (45,000 US-born; 160,000 born abroad) to 450,000 (220,000 US-born; 230,000 born abroad).

By 2022, Nicaraguans were migrating to the US in unprecedented numbers, with more than 180,000 crossing the border between January and November. Many of these individuals stated they would rather die than return to their country. Of Nicaragua's total population, around 10 percent left the country between 2019 and 2022. Additionally, between 2010 and 2023, the US population of Nicaraguan-born people increased by about 52 percent; in 2023, 46 percent of Nicaraguans were naturalized citizens. According to a report by Confidencial, nearly 100,000 Nicaraguans immigrated to the United States in 2024.

At the start of his second presidential term in 2025, Donald Trump focused on tightening immigration policies and deporting undocumented immigrants. By March 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security announced intentions to revoke TPS for immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, with some impacted individuals facing deportation within thirty days of the announcement. Of the 1,297,635 individuals (from all nations) actively granted TPS in the US in March 2025, 2,910 were from Nicaragua. Despite litigation aimed at slowing or preventing this action, TPS for Nicaraguan immigrants ended in September 2025. Further, the State Department imposed new visa restrictions for Nicaraguans believed to facilitate undocumented immigration to the US.


Bibliography

Dasema, Rebecca, and Jeanne Batalova. "Central American Immigrants in the United States." Migration Policy Institute, 14 Aug. 2025, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/central-american-immigrants-united-states. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Fernández-Kelly, Patricia, and Sara Curran. “Nicaraguans: Voices Lost, Voices Found.” Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes, U of California P, 2001.

Kopan, Tal. "'Suicide,' 'Catastrophe': Nicaraguans in US Terrified of Looming End of Protections." CNN, 30 Aug. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/tps-nicaragua-trump-immigrants-fear/index.html. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

"Nicaraguan-Origin Population in the U.S., 2000-2021." Pew Research Center, www.pewresearch.org/chart/us-hispanics-nicaraguan-origin-population. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Regidor, Cindy. "Nearly 100,000 Nicaraguans Emigrated in 2024." Confidencial, 28 Dec. 2024, confidencial.digital/english/nearly-100000-nicaraguans-emigrated-in-2024. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Salomon, Gisela. "Homeland Security Revokes Temporary Status for 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans." Associated Press, 21 Mar. 2025, apnews.com/article/immigration-humanitarian-parole-china-haiti-nicaragua-venezuela-c10f422939934cf8d1cf8a6f4dfc4610. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Solaún, Mauricio. U.S. Intervention and Regime Change in Nicaragua. U of Nebraska P, 2005.

"Temporary Protected Status Designated Country: Nicaragua." US Citizenship and Immigration Services, 25 Aug. 2025, www.uscis.gov/archive/temporary-protected-status-designated-country-nicaragua. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

"Temporary Protected Status (TPS): Fact Sheet." National Immigration Forum, 6 Oct. 2025, forumtogether.org/article/temporary-protected-status-fact-sheet. Accessed 4 Dec. 2025.

Walker, Thomas. Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle. 6th ed., Routledge, 2017.

More Like ThisRelated Articles

Related Articles (1)

Related Articles (1)