Remember when the United States tried to live up to the words emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty, urging the world to “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free”? |
Well, times change. |
In its zeal deport a million immigrants per year — an apparently arbitrary number that seems like it was chosen to sound big and scary — the Trump administration has gone to some astonishing lengths. |
It has targeted international students for speaking out against Israel’s wholesale destruction of Gaza. It has rounded up people in Home Depot parking lots in Los Angeles County for the crime of offering to paint your house or mow your lawn. Now Trump’s folks are rounding up and deporting people who were jailed in their home country for the sin of defending democracy. |
Nicaraguans who protested their government are being sent back |
As my colleagues Kate Linthicum and Ismael Lopez wrote yesterday, U.S. immigration agents have recently been arresting Nicaraguans who protested the government back home, including a high-profile group of political prisoners freed in 2023. The deal brokered by the U.S. State Department allowed the dissidents to be flown to the U.S. and granted temporary humanitarian parole and the chance to apply for asylum. |
Among them: journalists, human rights advocates and political dissidents who were persecuted by the Sandinistas, the socialist regime that rules Nicaragua, for demonstrating in favor of democracy. |
The recently rounded up include a 28-year-old who had been living in San Francisco since 2022 and was arrested for missing an immigration hearing. He said the date had changed without his knowledge. Also included was a 65-year-old former Sandinista who split with the Ortega government and publicly denounced his government. He was arrested in Los Angeles in August and is currently awaiting deportation. He came to the U.S. as part of the 2023 State Department deal. |
A quick history of U.S.-Nicaraguan relations |
It’s a head-spinning turn of events, especially if you remember that the U.S. government — particularly Republican administrations — has been fighting the Sandinistas on and off for decades. |
Until the late 1970s, when the Sandinistas were still a ragged, left-wing guerrilla movement, the United States provided guns, money and military training to the right-wing political dynasty that ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist. |
When the Sandinistas toppled that government in 1979, the U.S. started supporting an anti-Sandinista rebel group that called itself the Contras. But after a string of well-publicized human rights abuses by the group, Congress cut off military aid in the mid-1980s. |
But then-President Reagan’s administration devised a secret scheme to sell arms to the newly installed Islamic leaders in Iran (who were also hated and feared by the administration) and funnel the proceeds to the Contras. |
Known as the Iran-Contra affair, it became the defining political scandal of the 1980s. To the chagrin of U.S. conservatives, the Sandinistas prevailed through it all. |
In recent years, however, the Sandinistas’ octogenarian leader, Daniel Ortega, and his co-president wife have turned into precisely the kind of tyrants U.S. conservatives always feared. They started imprisoning dissidents, closing universities and dissolving opposition political parties. |
So, naturally, the current Republican administration is treating today’s Nicaraguan dissidents as heroes and honoring the offer of sanctuary, right? |
Wrong. |
Pro-democracy protesters headed to prison |
U.S deportations to Nicaragua more than doubled in the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period last year. |
Last week, former political prisoner and democracy activist Jeffrey Jarquín, 35, who had been living in Florida, was also among those sent back. |
He was taken directly from the deportation flight from the U.S. to Nicaragua’s notorious Modelo prison, where he had previously spent nine months for participating in pro-democracy marches, according to relatives and human rights advocates. |
During his previous incarceration there, guards had burned his genitals with cigarette butts, he later told journalists and human rights investigators. |
“The United States sent him to the very prisons where he had already been tortured,” Muriel Sáenz, a Los Angeles-based activist who represented Jarquín during an immigration bond hearing, told my colleagues. He has been sent “back into the hands of his tormentors.” |
Top stories |
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Children play at an oversize chess set on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica with a “For Lease” store behind them. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times) |
Santa Monica’s economic struggles |
- A new Rand Corp. study found Santa Monica’s economic decline began before the pandemic and outpaced nearby cities such as Beverly Hills, Culver City and West Hollywood.
- City officials are investing $3 million in Third Street Promenade, boosting downtown patrols and courting businesses, but say a sustained recovery depends on renewed private investment.
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Hidden dangers from gas stoves |
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SoCal continues to bake |
- A stubborn high-pressure ridge, warm ocean temperatures and weakened sea breezes are fueling an extraordinary Southern California heat wave; temperatures are 15 to 22 degrees above normal.
- Extreme heat is expected through Thursday, with only modest relief by the weekend.
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More news |
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Commentary and opinion |
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Editor’s pick |
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Alan Rothenberg recalls the challenges the Kings faced in their early years as the team tried to establish Jack Kent Cooke’s vision for hockey in L.A. |
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More picks |
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Keep up with California |
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Things to do |
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Burrito El Ranchero with chorizo rojo from Masa y Taza. (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) |
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Today’s recipe |
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Homemade candy corn. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) |
Love it or hate it, candy corn is the second most popular Halloween candy, after chocolate. There are many ways to make the candy, but this method doesn’t require a thermometer or timer. You just need a little patience to form and cut the candies. |
Question for you weekday editions only |
What’s a television show that takes place in California that you’d recommend to friends? |
Julie O. says, “‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’ Every afternoon doing my homework as a latchkey kid, was so much fun!” |
Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. |
Photo of the day |
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People find relief from the heat beneath the trees on the L.A. waterfront in San Pedro on Oct. 2, 2026. (Christina House/Los Angeles Times) |
Games |
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Here’s today’s mini crossword, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games. |
Have a great day, from the Essential California team |
Jack Dolan, investigative reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters |
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com. |
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