The Reflection Group of Politically Released Prisoners (GREX) asked the Government of Donald Trump not to transfer Marvin Castellón Ubilla to Nicaragua, one of the 222 Nicaraguan critics and opponents who were released from prison, expelled to the United States and stripped of their nationality in February 2023.
“Because he is politically persecuted and exiled, he should not be deported” to Nicaragua, the group, made up of imprisoned opponents, advocated in a statement in the context of the crisis that Nicaragua has been experiencing for eight years.
The GREX argued that Castellón Ubilla has been imprisoned three times by the regime presided over by husband and wife Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, “for being from a family opposed to the Nicaraguan regime.”
According to the group, the formerly imprisoned Nicaraguan politician was arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida, when he was on his way to work, along with some friends, and a tire on the vehicle he was driving got a puncture. Police officers then asked them for their documents and told them that “they were under arrest for immigration.”
“Marvin cannot be deported to his country given that the Ortega Murillo regime banished him, but we consider it unfair that (the US) chose to send him to a third country, (because) he has not done anything wrong, he has worked tirelessly in the construction industry since he arrived and continues to be an opponent of the regime,” highlighted GREX, which in turn advocated for him to be granted political asylum in the United States.
On November 29, 2025, farmer Juan Barillla, another of the 222 Nicaraguan opponents banished to the United States, was deported to Honduras after being arrested in the United States for driving while intoxicated.
Thirteen members of that family requested asylum
The Castellón Ubilla family He has been a victim since 2018 of the persecution of the Ortega-Murillo regime. In August 2018, in the context of social protests, three of its members, including brothers Marlon and Marvin Castellón Ubilla, as well as their father, were imprisoned.
In December 2019, Marlon, Marvin and their father were released under the family coexistence regime. However, months later both brothers were imprisoned again. Marvin was banished and his family was left in Nicaragua.
The constant police siege and the fear of being imprisoned again by the Ortega-Murillo regime, added to the pleas of his mother, motivated the formerly imprisoned politician Marlon Castellón Ubilla to leave Nicaragua, along with 12 of his relatives, to seek asylum in the United States.
*With information from EFE
