Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the State Department will restrict visas for at least 250 Nicaraguan officials, pointing to human rights violations made by the Nicaraguan government, led by co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, who are husband and wife. 

“The United States is taking decisive steps to impose visa restrictions on more than 250 regime officials of the Nicaraguan dictatorship. With this new set of restrictions, the U.S. government has now taken steps to impose visa restrictions on over 2,000 officials in Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s regime, which has deprived the Nicaraguan people of their fundamental freedoms and forced so many into exile,” Rubio said in a statement on Friday. 

“As we mark seven years since the Ortega and Murillo regime’s brutal wave of repression against protestors, we reflect on the protestors’ courage and desire to live in a Nicaragua free from tyranny,” the U.S.’s top diplomat added on Friday. “The United States will not stand for Ortega and Murillo’s continued assault on Nicaragua.” 

Nicaragua’s Legislature approved a constitutional reform in late January, allowing Ortega and Murillo to serve as co-presidents of the Central American country. Ortega has argued that the adopted proposal “strengthens the model of people’s President, the model of direct democracy.”

The reform came as part of the government’s crackdown, which has accelerated since 2018 anti-government protests. The government has been accused of imprisoning political dissidents, reporters and religious leaders, with thousands leaving the country in the process. 

The ruling party’s officials and military leaders are responsible for abuses, crimes and human rights violations that are part of the systematic repression campaign, according to U.N. experts. In a lengthy report from earlier this month, U.N. human rights experts said Ortega and Murillo have “built a centralized and repressive regime that has co-opted all branches of Government and blurred the lines between party and State.” 

“As I stated during my first visit to our region, the Nicaraguan regime is an enemy of humanity. The Trump Administration will not tolerate threats to U.S. security from a regime that weaponizes immigration and positions Nicaragua as a hub for illegal immigrants trying to cross our border,” Rubio said in a Friday post on the social platform X. 

Last year, the Biden administration slapped visa restrictions and imposed sanctions on more than 250 members of the Nicaraguan government, nongovernmental actors and their close family members.