By Ryan Morgan

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Feb. 18 announced visa restrictions against Nicaraguan prison director Roberto Clemente Guevara Gómez for his alleged role in human rights violations against political prisoners.

With the visa action, Gómez is to be ineligible for entry into the United States.

The action against Gómez marks the latest U.S. government effort to raise pressure on Nicaragua’s current leadership, under the co-presidency of the left-wing Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo.

Relations between Washington and Managua have been particularly strained since the spring of 2018, when protests against plans to reform Nicaragua’s retirement pension programs devolved into deadly clashes with Nicaraguan security forces.

The U.S. government has continued to raise concerns about human rights abuses in the Central American country in the years since.

Gómez is the director of the Jorge Navarro prison complex, also known as “La Modelo.”

The U.S. State Department’s latest report on human rights in Nicaragua alleges that prison officials at La Modelo have subjected more than 150 inmates to cruel and degrading treatment.

Citing reports by human rights organizations, the department document alleges that prison authorities intentionally malnourished inmates, interrogated them even after they were convicted, deprived them of sunlight, kept them outside in extreme heat, prevented them from speaking, and denied them access to religious objects.

The State Department report also noted an allegation that Gómez led a group of prison guards who beat prisoners who celebrated news of public outrage against the 2024 Venezuelan election.

The U.S. government and other nations disputed the 2024 Venezuelan election, in which the country’s polling authorities declared the now-deposed Nicolás Maduro to be the winner.

U.S. forces captured Maduro in a pre-dawn raid on Jan. 3, and brought him to the United States to face criminal prosecution on charges related to narcotics trafficking.

“We continue to call for accountability for the crimes committed by the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship and urge … the immediate, unconditional release of all unjustly detained political prisoners in Nicaragua,” Rubio said on Feb. 18.

Since 2018, Washington has applied sanctions and other punitive measures against Nicaraguan officials.

As of April 2025, the U.S. government had imposed visa restrictions on more than 2,000 Nicaraguan officials.

In January, amid heightened diplomatic pressure following Maduro’s capture, the Nicaraguan government announced that it had released several detainees who had been held within the country’s prison system.

The U.S. government had specifically called for the release of 60 detainees, but Nicaraguan authorities did not specify the exact number of people they freed at the time.

Reuters contributed to this report.