The Committee to Protect Journalists is calling for his immediate release, warning that deportation could put a journalist persecuted by the Ortega-Murillo government at serious risk
Nicaraguan journalist Luis Galeano, director of the independent news and commentary program Café con Voz, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Florida on September 14, 2026.
Galeano was reportedly working as an Uber driver when he was detained. His wife, Deykell Santamaría, said he was initially allowed only a very brief phone call to tell her that he was in ICE custody. He is expected to be transferred to the Baker Correctional Institution in Florida, with an immigration court hearing scheduled for October 2.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on U.S. authorities to release Galeano immediately and ensure due process in his asylum case, which has been pending since 2018.
José Zamora, CPJ’s regional director for the Americas, described the detention as deeply concerning and warned of the consequences of returning Galeano to the country from which he was forced to flee.
Galeano left Nicaragua in December 2018 amid an escalating crackdown on independent media and journalists following the mass anti-government protests that began earlier that year. He had worked for 100% Noticias, one of the independent media outlets targeted by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. After leaving Nicaragua, Galeano settled in the United States and continued reporting on his country through Café con Voz.
CHANNELDRAW STUDIO · INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING
Active Art Yearbook
A year of drawings, stories and civic engagement. Discover the Channeldraw annual volumes.
Explore the yearbooks →His persecution did not end with exile.
In February 2023, the Nicaraguan authorities stripped Galeano of his citizenship, together with 93 other critics and opponents of the government. The group included journalists, writers, human rights defenders and political figures such as Sergio Ramírez, Gioconda Belli and Carlos Fernando Chamorro. Galeano was also declared a “traitor to the homeland” and deprived of his property.
For press freedom organizations, the possibility of his removal from the United States therefore raises an especially serious question: what happens when a journalist who fled political persecution is detained by the immigration authorities of the country where he sought protection?
The case brings together two issues that have become increasingly central to the work of ChannelDraw: the persecution and detention of journalists, and the human consequences of the expanding power of ICE.
In 2026, Gianluca Costantini collaborated with the Committee to Protect Journalists on Faces of Journalism Under Detention, a series of portraits documenting journalists imprisoned around the world and the use of detention as a tool for silencing independent reporting.
More recently, ChannelDraw has documented the human impact of U.S. immigration enforcement through portraits of people affected by ICE. On August 5, those drawings were carried by activists inside the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., during an Abolish ICE protest. The portraits were displayed inside one of the physical spaces of American political power before protesters were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police. The project is documented in The Faces of ICE’s Victims Enter the United States Senate.
Galeano’s detention now places these two stories on the same line.
He is simultaneously a journalist who fled repression and an immigrant caught inside the U.S. detention system.
Periodistas y Comunicadores Independientes de Nicaragua (PCIN) has also called on U.S. authorities to guarantee Galeano’s safety and due process, stressing that returning him to Nicaragua could endanger his life, freedom and personal integrity.
The fundamental issue extends beyond a single immigration case. Journalists forced into exile because of their reporting need countries where seeking protection does not expose them once again to detention, uncertainty or the possibility of being returned to those who persecuted them.
For Luis Galeano, exile was supposed to provide that protection.
Eight years after fleeing Nicaragua, his freedom is once again at stake.
Sources and further reading: Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Expediente Público, Periodistas y Comunicadores Independientes de Nicaragua (PCIN).
ChannelDraw is independent and reader-supported. Your support helps us continue documenting artists, journalists and activists whose voices are threatened or censored.
Other ways to support ChannelDraw
You can also support our independent work by joining us on Patreon or Substack, or by purchasing a ChannelDraw Yearbook. Every contribution helps us keep ChannelDraw independent and continue documenting stories that need to be seen.
