In Senegal’s capital, Nicaragua is a hot ticket among travel agents as migrants try to reach US

Dakar, Senegal — Gueva Ba tried eleven times to reach Europe by boat from Morocco, but failed every time. Then in 2023, the former welder heard about a new route to the United States by flying to Nicaragua and making the rest of the journey illegally overland to Mexico’s northern border.

“In Senegal it’s all over the streets – everyone is talking about Nicaragua, Nicaragua, Nicaragua,” said Ba, who paid about 6 million CFA francs ($10,000) to come to Nicaragua in July with stops in Morocco, Spain and El Salvador . “It’s not something hidden.”

Ba, 40, was deported from the US in September along with 131 compatriots after two months of detention, but thousands of other Senegalese have gained a foothold in America. Many turn to savvy travel agents who know the route – touted on social media by those who have successfully settled in the US

They are part of a wave of migration to the United States that is extraordinary in its size and scope, with more and more people crossing the border from distant lands. And like this route used by the Senegalese, more and more people are making plans, making payments and seeking help through social networks and apps like WhatsApp and TikTok.

The number of arrests for illegal crossings at the US border with Mexico reached a record high in December. January has seen a decline this month, but the number of arrests has exceeded 6.4 million since January 2021. And Mexicans are only responsible for about 1 in 4 arrests, with the others coming from more than 100 countries.

US authorities arrested Senegalese migrants 20,231 times for crossing the border illegally from July to December. That’s a 10-fold increase from the 2,049 arrests in the same period of 2022, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Many are crossing in remote deserts of western Arizona, such as Ba and California.

News of the Nicaragua route started circulating in Dakar early last year and gained attention in May, says Abdoulaye Doucouré, owner of a travel agency that sold about 1,200 tickets from Dakar to Nicaragua in the last three months of 2023, for the equivalent of several thousand dollars each.

“People didn’t know about this route, but thanks to social networks and the first migrants who took this route, information circulated quickly among migrants,” he said.

Some are motivated by the political unrest in Senegal – authorities postponed February’s presidential election by 10 months – but the sudden drop appeared to depend largely on social media posts and the spread of the route to get there.

Spikes attributed to social media have occurred in other West African countries, where populations have historically turned first to Europe to flee. Mauritanians have arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico in similarly large numbers, and migrants from Ghana and Gambia have also arrived.

Many are eventually released into the U.S. to seek asylum in immigrant courts that have had a years-long backlog of more than 3 million cases.

Passports from many African countries carry little weight in the Western Hemisphere, making the overland journey to the United States difficult to even begin. According to The Henley Passport Index, Senegalese can fly visa-free to only two countries in the Americas: Nicaragua and Bolivia. Nicaragua is much closer than Bolivia and avoids the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap in Panama.

As U.S. sanctions against Nicaragua’s repressive government have increased, President Daniel Ortega’s government has used migration to push back.

The Nicaraguan government went so far as to hire a Dubai-based company to train Nicaraguan civil aviation in managing national immigration procedures for charter flight passengers. According to Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue, more than 500 charter flights landed from June to November, mainly from Haiti and Cuba.

But migrants from further afield, like Ba, also came to Nicaragua on a series of connecting commercial flights from Africa. In African capitals, migrants typically purchase multi-leg tickets from travel agencies that connect via Istanbul or Madrid, followed by stops in Bogota, Columbia or San Salvador, El Salvador, before finally arriving in Managua, Nicaragua. From there, they meet smugglers who offer to take them to the Honduran border, or arrange the trip all the way to the US.

The US State Department has called on Nicaragua to “play a responsible role” in controlling migration to the hemispheric region, but that remains to be seen. Nicaraguan first lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo did not respond to a request for comment on the surge in extra-continental migration through her country.

In October, El Salvador began charging $1,130 to citizens of 57 mostly African countries and India who travel through the country’s airport. Authorities said most of those charged were bound for Nicaragua aboard Avianca, a Colombian commercial airline.

El Salvador’s compensation caused airfares from Dakar to rise at the end of 2023, said Serigne Faye, an agent at the Touba Express travel agency in Senegal’s capital. Some passengers fly via Bogota instead. Stopovers in Turkey are the most expensive.

Although most asylum applications fail, the immigration court backlog allows people to remain in the U.S. for years, entitled to a work permit. The asylum application rate for Senegalese in the US government’s budget year ended September 30 was 26%, compared with 14% for all nationalities, according to Justice Department figures.

Ousmane Anne, 34, left Senegal on September 25 with a plane ticket to Nicaragua purchased from a travel agency. His journey took a month – longer and more expensive than expected. Mexico was treacherous, he said, describing his traveling group as often harassed, threatened and robbed by gangs.

Despite the enthusiasm at home, he said, he would be hard-pressed to recommend the trip to anyone who doesn’t understand the risks. But he made it to New York, which has the largest Senegalese population of any U.S. metropolitan area, according to census data.

“I knew it wouldn’t be so easy to come here to the United States, but the hope I had was greater than all the obstacles and problems,” Anne said. “I knew the opportunities would be better here.”

He recently attended a forum in Harlem organized by the Senegalese Association of America. He learned the basics of U.S. law, heard some do’s and don’ts from police officers about the e-bikes and mopeds popular with immigrants, and got tips on navigating the health care system.

Even though he came away with more questions than answers, Anne says, he remains hopeful.

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Associated Press writers Philip Marcelo in New York, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Christopher Sherman and Maria Verza in Mexico City contributed.