Luis Galeano detained by US immigration agents

US immigration authorities detained Nicaraguan journalist-in-exile Luis Galeano in Florida on September 14 while he was awaiting a decision on his political asylum application, his family said.

Galeano's wife, Deykel Santamaria, told AFP that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him while he was working as an Uber driver. She said he briefly called her from a police station but did not know exactly where he was.

Galeano, 48, fled to the United States in 2018 and continued his journalism from abroad. Nicaragua's government stripped him of his citizenship in 2023 after declaring him and other critics "traitors to the homeland". His family said Spain later granted him Spanish citizenship.

Trump-allied Republican lawmaker Maria Elvira Salazar wrote on X that the United States must distinguish between criminals and political exiles. She said Galeano, who faces possible deportation, must not end up in the hands of the same dictatorship that persecuted him.