Latest news with #Orozco
Eater
6 days ago
- Business
- Eater
Muelle 8, One of LA's Best Sinaloan Seafood Spots, Reopens as a Food Truck
After much anticipation among Mexican seafood lovers, Muelle 8 has reopened in East LA with a smaller, tighter menu served from a food trailer. The Downey restaurant originally debuted in February 2023, garnering lots of initial praise, including a nod from the Los Angeles Times, serving regional Mexican seafood from Culiacán. The recipes were developed by its late founder, Abel Martínez, who was a victim of the ongoing violence in February 2024 that has plagued Culiacán in recent years. But before his untimely death, Martínez and his cousin, Jay Orozco, the current owner of the Muelle 8 brand in the U.S., had become dissatisfied with their former partners in the Downey restaurant, so they decided to close it in January 2024 to regroup. After a lengthy health inspection process and complications in fabricating a food trailer to meet its needs, the Muelle 8 trailer opened on July 3, 2025, after being closed for a year and a half. Other issues created more delays. 'We also had to wait for our cooks and staff from the original location to make themselves available because they'd been working at other restaurants,' says Orozco. Chef Luis Cortez, the chef who oversaw the opening in Downey in 2023, is back, as is one other cook and a former cashier, who comprise the entire team of this smaller operation. 'I wanted to start with a trailer just to see how it goes this time around,' says Orozco, who is now the sole operator and owner of Muelle 8. His family still operates a very busy Muelle 8 restaurant back home in Sinaloa. Orozco is working once again with the same local and Mexico-based purveyors that they used in Downey, bringing in fresh Sonoran callo de hacha (a rare scallop found only in the Sea of Cortez), Mexican shrimp, and products from wholesale seafood markets here in Los Angeles. The trailer's abridged menu draws from the most popular hits from the barra fría (raw bar) and barra caliente (hot bar) that were served at the restaurant. From the barra fría, spicy plates include the sashimi-like wheel of raw, marinated tuna strips with a fan of red onion slivers, half-moon cucumber wedges, and an ornate avocado rose in the center. The dish is finished with jalapeño rings set over each slice of tuna and then doused with salsa negra. The tostada chavita consists of marinated, cubed tuna that sits on a crispy wonton tostada, spread with cream cheese, and topped with fried leeks and black sesame seeds. Muelle 8 seafood trailer in East LA. Bill Esparza Ceviche rojo, made with a spicy red salsa, can be prepared with raw or cooked shrimp, or a combination of both. It's then tossed with diced tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onions. For botanas (seafood snacks), there's Platillo Jay, a duo of cooked shrimp and callo de hacha set over a shallow pool of salsa negra, and the combinado, a mix of raw shrimp, cooked shrimp, octopus, and callo de hacha, also paired with salsa negra. The campechana, or mixed seafood cocktail, boasts the seven seas in a cold shrimp stock that contains fish, raw shrimp, cooked shrimp, crab, octopus, sea snail, and octopus. For the barra caliente, Orozco has brought back a few signature plates and seafood tacos. A pair of tacos made the cut at the new trailer. The popular quesitaco, a fried cheese envelope stuffed with shrimp on a corn tortilla, a pile of shredded cabbage, carrot strips, and limes, is back. The other taco is the mar y tierra, a surf-and-turf taco of grilled cabrería and shrimp over a roasted Anaheim chile that's full of melted cheese. It comes dressed in chipotle mayonnaise. For plates, there are camarones zarandeados, a half dozen grilled shrimp marinated in a piquant adobo, and Muelle 8's classic roca, egg-battered shrimp in a sweet glaze, sporting stripes of mayo and black sesame seeds. While much of the Mexican seafood in Los Angeles that waves the prestigious banner of Sinaloan seafood, Muelle 8 stands among an elite group that employs veteran chefs from Sinaloa, such as Mariscos Chiltepín and Del Mar Ostionería. 'The challenge was to get back out there, but it's going really well and we've been selling out,' says Orozco. 'We had great feedback the first time around and want to honor the founder [Martínez] by staying true to the flavors of Culiacán.' Muelle 8 is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Tuesday and closed on Wednesdays. It will be parked at 5221 E. Olympic Boulevard, East LA. (323) 797- 0423. Jay Orozco, owner of Muelle 8 in Los Angeles. Bill Esparza Callo de hacha ceviche. Matthew Kang Tuna fit, a sashimi of tuna with cucumber and avocado. Matthew Kang Eater LA All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Chicago Tribune
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Chicago father becomes face of lawsuit against ICE
Good afternoon, Chicago. Abel Orozco was getting home after buying tamales for his family, like he did most weekends for the past 30 years. They would have breakfast and head to church. Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the Mexican immigrant outside his home in suburban Lyons without a federal warrant. Now, nearly six months later, he is still detained. Immigration and civil rights attorneys argue that his arrest was not only unfair but illegal. Thanks to the video his son recorded of the arrest, Orozco has become the face of a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Attorneys say the two government agencies violated the constitutional rights of Orozco and at least 25 other people, including one U.S. citizen, during the first week of increased immigration enforcement in the Chicago area after President Donald Trump took office. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Former Commonwealth Edison lobbyist John Hooker was sentenced today to a year and a half in prison for his role in an elaborate scheme to funnel $1.3 million to associates of then-House Speaker Michael Madigan in exchange for the powerful Democrat's help with the utility's legislative agenda in Springfield. Read more here. More top news stories: With its new $71 million expansion, EGA Spectro Alloys in this southern suburb of the Twin Cities becomes one of only about 40 plants in the U.S. that can make recycled aluminum billets. Think 25-foot-long poles of solid aluminum. Read more here. More top business stories: Yuki Kawamura came to Las Vegas with a simple goal: get a contract. Read more here. More top sports stories: Mahari brings not just the vibrant cuisines of the African diaspora to Chicago, but chefs tracing their cultures and blazing their own paths, writes Tribune critic Louisa Kung Liu Chu. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: More than 20 states sued President Donald Trump's administration today over billions of dollars in frozen education funding for after-school care, summer programs and more. Read more here. More top stories from around the world:
Chicago Tribune
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago father becomes face of lawsuit against ICE as judge hears challenge to warrantless arrests
Abel Orozco was getting home after buying tamales for his family, like he did most weekends for the past 30 years. They would have breakfast and head to church. Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the Mexican immigrant outside his home in suburban Lyons without a federal warrant. Now, nearly six months later, he is still detained. Immigration and civil rights attorneys argue that his arrest was not only unfair but illegal. Thanks to the video his son recorded of the arrest, Orozco has become the face of a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Attorneys say the two government agencies violated the constitutional rights of Orozco and at least 25 other people, including one U.S. citizen, during the first week of increased immigration enforcement in the Chicago area after President Donald Trump took office. 'I'm not used to (speaking in public), it's something that's really awkward for me and embarrassing,' his son Eduardo Orozco told the Tribune. 'But even though I feel like that, I still have to do it for my father, and because there are many other people who are supporting us.' The father, 47, has a clean record. Yet he is the only plaintiff left that is still in detention. One was deported. The rest have been released. 'We are angry and concerned,' his son said. 'I hope the judge can see what we experienced on Sunday morning, and make a ruling in favor of my family and all the families affected by the cruelty of the ICE agents.' A federal judge heard arguments earlier this month for a motion filed by immigration attorneys and advocates who argued that DHS and ICE officers violated warrantless arrest policies amid sweeping arrests in the Chicago field office region in January. The motion, filed in March of this year, focuses on 25 people who were detained, including one U.S. citizen, in the Trump administration's highly publicized enforcement operation over the winter. In making arrests, the federal government allegedly went against both immigration laws and the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, the plaintiffs argue. 'It seems as if there are repeat violations,' said Mark Fleming of the National Immigrant Justice Center in his closing argument to the judge. 'There is real concern that they are not following the law.' Judge Jeffrey Cummings of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois was asked by Fleming to consider whether ICE's January arrests violated the 2022 Castañon Nava settlement agreement, which states that ICE must meet two criteria to make a warrantless arrest: probable cause that someone is in the U.S. unlawfully, and that the person is a flight risk. Immigrant advocates say ICE ignored those standards when it detained people in January without probable cause and before warrants were filled out. As for Orozco, Fleming said that federal agents allegedly created an administrative warrant while he was handcuffed. The Castañon Nava settlement agreement, which expired on May 13, had been the result of several ICE raids in the Chicagoland area in 2018 that the NIJC argued led to the collateral arrests of hundreds of individuals in vehicle stops and without warrants. Collateral arrests, or the detaining of individuals who are not targets, have become more common as the federal government ramps up daily quotas of people detained. Fleming described a pattern of reckless and unlawful enforcement actions after President Trump was sworn into office and pledged to begin mass deportations in Chicago. In some cases, he said, ICE agents will carry around blank warrants. 'That doesn't sit well with me,' Judge Cummings said, after asking to see a copy of the blank form. Defense attorneys William H. Weiland and Craig Oswald defended their policies, stating that there is nothing inappropriate about the agency's use of warrants and that ICE is entitled to continue the practice. Fleming focused on the case of Abel Orozco, who remains detained in a detention center in Indiana despite mounting legal and community pressure for his release. Abel Orozco had a prior removal order, said Fleming, but only because he wanted to see his ailing father in Mexico one more time before he died. According to the motion, ICE officers were apparently looking for one of Orozco's sons, who is decades younger but has the same name. The agents allegedly grabbed and handcuffed Abel Orozco after they saw his driver's license. His son Eduardo, 26, ran outside when he heard his father screaming, 'I can't breathe … call a lawyer.' Eduardo Orozco began questioning the agents and demanded a warrant. The agents stayed quiet and can be seen walking away from Eduardo Orozco who began recording the interaction 'knowing that something was not right,' he said. There were more than six agents with guns who surrounded their home and they refused to identify themselves. That's a scene that still haunts the family. 'They were trying to knock down the door to my house without a warrant,' Eduardo Orozco recalled. Weiland and Oswald defended the arrest by saying that assessing flight risk in real time can be difficult. But the motion argues that ICE didn't consider or document the individual's community ties — whether Abel Orozco had a home, family, or employment. Abel Orozco's wife has cancer, said Fleming. Abel Orozco had just started a tree-cutting business — a dream come true, his son said. In the months since Abel Orozco's arrest, according to Fleming, his business has floundered. Many of the other detainees were allegedly arrested after leaving their houses for work. They were often handcuffed and put in their cars, the motion states, without being allowed to call relatives and let them know what was happening. Plaintiffs cited two hours of security footage from a restaurant in Liberty, Missouri, showing 10 'heavily armed' federal agents who allegedly went into a restaurant and held 12 employees in booths before escorting them out and detaining them. Missouri is one of six states that the Chicago Field Office covers. On repeated occasions, ICE misspelled names or omitted important information while filling out warrants that were 'riddled with defects,' according to the motion. ICE was also delayed in its response after plaintiffs requested that it provide details on the arrests and paperwork, the motion states. Among other actions to prevent alleged unlawful ICE arrests, the motion seeks to extend the Castañon Nava settlement agreement for three years, demand the release of Abel Orozco, mandate the reporting of all arrests since Trump took office and order ICE officers operating in the Chicago region to be retrained. Cummings expressed that the allegations altogether seemed 'troubling,' especially considering that no one 'knows the magnitude of this problem.' The violations that the attorneys uncovered, he said, only came to light because families reached out to the immigrant advocacy organizations. Cummings did not make a ruling, but said he would try to come to a resolution as soon as possible. At a news conference after the hearing, community organizers gathered outside federal court to decry ICE's arrest practices in January. Fleming called the ICE arrests a 'parallel universe of unlawful policies' because the agency has no real method of accountability. The result is hundreds of people being taken from neighborhoods, said Xanat Sobrevilla, of Organized Communities Against Deportations. She said that after the 2018 immigration sweeps, ICE told her organization it would implement changes. 'Since January of this year, that commitment has been blatantly broken,' she said. 'We bear witness to families shattered, fathers and mothers taken from their homes.' For Eduardo Orozco and his family, the last six months have been overwhelming and heartbreaking. They missed several mortgage payments and the turmoil has caused emotional chaos to all of the family members. Still, he shows up in courtrooms, news conferences and other actions against ICE because he believes his father's story can spark change. 'We're not just fighting for him anymore,' Eduardo Orozco said. 'We're fighting for everyone who was taken like this.' As Judge Cummings weighs a decision that could set a precedent for how ICE operates in Chicago communities, immigrant rights advocates and families like the Orozcos wait. Not just for a ruling, but for repair by releasing Abel Orozco. As the elder Orozco remains in detention, Eduardo now juggles fatherhood, his father's collapsed business and caring for a sick mother, hoping to keep his family's faith that justice will be served and that his father will be released.
Miami Herald
19-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Trump move to tax money sent abroad could devastate Latin America, Caribbean economies
A proposed tax on the money sent by immigrants in the United States to friends and families back in their home countries could have unintended devastating consequences for US. national security and for receiving countries, especially those in Latin America and the Caribbean that have come to heavily rely on the funds, experts warn. The 3.5% tax on remittances, which are not currently taxed, is among several provisions tucked inside President Donald Trump's 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill' tax and spending plan that House Republicans narrowly passed last month. Senate Republicans are now trying to agree on a version before sending it to the floor for a vote ahead of July 4, the deadline Trump has set for it to hit his desk. While there are some notable differences between what the House passed and what the Senate Finance Committee published on Monday, the proposed tax on remittances still risks pushing migrants to use unregulated and unlicensed networks to send money to their home countries and plunging countries like Haiti, where the money represents a key source of family income, deeper into economic hardship. It also requires U.S. citizens, green-card holders and anyone with a Social Security number to provide that information before they can send money abroad. 'We did a conservative estimate of the impact of these flows and it will have an effect of reducing transfers by at least 5% in the next year,' said Manuel Orozco, director of Migration, Remittances and Development Program at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. Orozco said that will have a devastating effect for countries in Central America along with the four nations — Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela — that were recently part of a Biden-era humanitarian parole program now being targeted by the Trump administration. Earlier this month the Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Homeland Security can deport beneficiaries of the program that had allowed them to temporarily stay and work in the U.S. for up to two years, while Trump's decision to end the program is being litigated in the courts. Last week, the administration began sending revocation letters to about 500,000 recipients of the program, urging them to leave the U.S. on their own. Many of those targeted are also enrolled in Temporary Protected Status, another benefit that the administration is seeking to end after rolling back their end dates. 'On the one hand, the Temporary Protected Status and the humanitarian parole is being discontinued for people from these four nationalities,' Orozco said. 'On the other hand, you have the tax increase for those nationalities who happen to be much less likely to have a social security number because they arrived recently, they escaped their home country for political reasons or due to state fragility or state failure as in the case of Haiti.' In the case of Haiti, which has become highly dependent on remittances, 'you're dealing with a time bomb,' said Orozco, who found that for every $10 dollars remitted to Haiti in 2020 — when the country received $3.8 billion from abroad — at least $8 came from the U.S. 'The impact of this tax on Haiti will be devastating because there are 500,000 Haitians' at risk of losing their legal right to stay in the U.S. in August., Orozco said. 'Haiti's dependence on remittances is significant in a moment where … the state has already collapsed, and income basically depends on remittance flows. So the implications of these are far more complex.' But Haiti's remittance flows, which surpassed $4 billion last year according to its central bank, are not the only ones that risk taking a hit should the tax provision pass. Central American nations with economies weakened by years of instability and insecurity also will be hurt. Orozco cites the case of Guatemala, where he recently examined 15 years' worth of data through 2024. A 1% increase in remittances, Orozco said, led to a 15% increase in the country's GDP. 'Remittances have increased an average of 13% for the past 15 years,' he said. 'If remittances were to fall 10%, you will have an economic recession in Guatemala, because a 1% decrease will decelerate the Guatemalan economy substantially for more than four months.' The decline, he said, would be much more severe in Honduras, where a 1% increase in remittances increased the GDP by 33%. In both Central American nations, remittance income accounts for 30% of private consumption and any decline will have a direct effect on gross domestic product, GDP, Orozco said. 'You will have a big blow in these countries' economies,' he said. On Wednesday, Orozco was part of a conversation about the effects of the legislation on family remittances. Fellow panelists Kathy Tomasofsky, the executive director of Money Services Business Association, and Marina Olman-Pal, chair of the Legal & Regulatory Affairs Committee of the Financial & International Business Association, said many questions that remain about the legislation. The Senate version appears to focus on cross-border transfers that are initiated in cash and being sent to family members, Olman-Pal said. Transfers funded with debit or credit cards appear to be excluded in the Senate version. The original tax got scaled back from 5% to 3.5%. While the House version required senders to be U.S. citizens, the Senate version expands the universe to include those with social security numbers that allow them to work. It also offers more exemptions ,such as individuals using debit and credit cards to transfer money abroad. In the version released by the Senate Finance Committee on Monday, the tax must be collected by the remittance company and paid quarterly to the Treasury Department. 'For an American citizen, a green card holder that has that Social Security information, you are going to now have to complete a form and hand over that information to your cashier in order to affect the transfer,' said Tomasofsky. 'The business company, that small business, is going to have to set up a procedure to collect the information, to store that information. There are concerns about privacy.' Tomasofsky said the industry has made significant strides in the last 20 years, but the new reporting system could have an adverse effect on small grocery stores and businesses. For example, a company that only does 500 transactions a month may opt to get out of the business after deciding it's not worth the extra compliance. 'I'm not certain that it's going to provide any benefit to anyone in the long run because of it,' she said. Olman-Pal said while social security numbers are protected under federal and state law, there is a risk associated with increased collection. She agrees with Tomasofsky that the cost of banking could also go up as a result of the legislation's new requirements. 29 bills on taxing remittances The motivation for such legislation varies depending on the proponent. Some say it's intended to discourage unauthorized migration. Some others say it's a means to raise revenue, while some proponents accuse migrants of not paying taxes and say it's a way to tax them indirectly. Orozco and the others caution against all of these assumptions, noting that studies show that migrants, regardless of immigration status, do file taxes and in some cases the money they send home has discouraged migration to the U.S. Still, this past year, 18 states have proposed 29 different bills on taxing remittances, Tomasofsky said. In all but one instance, Tomasofsky said, the industry was able to push back 'by demonstrating how many unintended consequences there are in this bill, and the states have not moved those bills forward.' But this is the first time that the push to tax remittances, which already come with high fees, has reached a level where there appears to be political appetite for approving it. 'The motivations may be political, but everything is about the fine print, the content of what you try to come up with, and the adverse effect that it can have, the backfiring effect,' Orozco said. To underscore his point, he brought up the case of Ghanaians living in Europe and an analysis of the global money transfer market and the relationship between stiff regulations and higher transaction costs. As a result of the stiffer controls on the origination and destination of remittances, nationals of Ghana in Europe, for example, turned to informal channels, Orozco said. 'Statistically, for a 1% increase in the transaction cost the use of informal fund transfers will increase by 6% but also, there is a cost element to it,' he said. 'Immigrants don't have an infinite amount of resources. They have a very limited income capacity that in the U.S. averages to about $3,300 a month.' 'If your transaction cost goes from 3 to 6% or 6.5%, you're actually spending 1% of your monthly income just to pay those costs. And what typically people do is send less money,' Orozco added. 'So you will see one side going informal, and another side who may pay the tax but send less money.'
San Francisco Chronicle
18-06-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Religious leaders released from Nicaraguan prison say their experience only strengthens their faith
God's message didn't immediately make sense to pastor José Luis Orozco. But when U.S. efforts resulted in his release from a Nicaraguan prison a few months later, everything became clear. 'The Lord had told me: 'Don't be afraid, José Luis. A wind will blow from the north, your chains will break and the doors will open,'' the pastor said from his new home in Austin, Texas. By September 2024, he had spent nine months behind bars. With 12 other Nicaraguan members of the Texas-based evangelical Christian organization Mountain Gateway, he faced charges like money laundering and illicit enrichment. Just like them, other faith leaders had been imprisoned during a crackdown that organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have said are attacks on religious freedom. Orozco thought his innocence would eventually surface. So when the U.S. government announced that it had secured his release along with other political prisoners, he wasn't completely surprised. 'That's when I understood,' the pastor said. 'God was telling me he would act through the United States.' In the hours following the announcement, 135 Nicaraguans were escorted to Guatemala, where most sought paths to settle in other countries. Why did Nicaragua imprison religious leaders? Tensions between President Daniel Ortega and Nicaraguan faith leaders began in 2018, when a social security reform sparked massive protests that were met with a crackdown. Relations worsened as religious figures rejected political decisions harming Nicaraguans and Ortega moved aggressively to silence his critics. Members of Catholic and Evangelical churches have denounced surveillance and harassment from the government. Processions aren't allowed and investigations have been launched into both pastors and priests. CSW, a British-based group that advocates for religious freedom, documented 222 cases affecting Nicaraguans in 2024. 'Religious persecution in Nicaragua is the cruelest Latin America has seen in years,' said Martha Patricia Molina, a Nicaraguan lawyer who keeps a record of religious freedom violations. 'But the church has always accomplished its mission of protecting human life.' Spreading the gospel Orozco was the first member of his family to become evangelical. He felt called to the ministry at age 13 and convinced relatives to follow in his footsteps. He began preaching in Managua, urging different churches to unite. His experience became key for Mountain Gateway's missionary work. Founded by American pastor Jon Britton Hancock, it began operating in Nicaragua in 2013. CSW had warned that religious leaders defending human rights or speaking critically of the government can face violence and arbitrary detention. But Hancock and Orozco said their church never engaged in political discourse. While maintaining good relations with officials, Mountain Gateway developed fair-trade coffee practices and offered disaster relief to families affected by hurricanes. By the time Orozco was arrested, his church had hosted mass evangelism campaigns in eight Nicaraguan cities, including Managua, where 230,000 people gathered with the government's approval in November 2023. An unexpected imprisonment Orozco and 12 other members of Mountain Gateway were arrested the next month. 'They chained us hand and foot as if we were high-risk inmates,' he recalled. 'None of us heard from our families for nine months.' The prison where he was taken hosted around 7,000 inmates, but the cells where the pastors were held were isolated from the others. The charges they faced weren't clarified until their trial began three months later. No information was provided to their relatives, who desperately visited police stations and prisons asking about their whereabouts. 'We still had faith this was all a confusion and everything would come to light,' Orozco said. 'But they sentenced us to the maximum penalty of 12 years and were ordered to pay $84 million without a right to appeal.' Preaching in prison Fasting and prayer helped him endure prison conditions. Pastors weren't given drinking water or Bibles, but his faith kept him strong. 'The greatest war I've fought in my Christian life was the mental battle I led in that place,' Orozco recalled. Guards didn't prevent pastors from preaching, so they ministered to each other. According to the pastor, they were mocked, but when they were released, a lesson came through. 'That helped them see that God performed miracles,' he said. 'We always told them: Someday we'll leave this place.' Molina said that several faith leaders who fled Nicaragua have encountered barriers imposed by countries unprepared to address their situation. According to the testimonies she gathered, priests have struggled to relocate and minister, because passports are impossible to obtain, and foreign parishes require documents that they can't request. But Orozco fared differently. He shares his testimony during the services he leads in Texas, where he tries to rebuild his life. 'I arrived in the United States just like God told me,' the pastor said. 'So I always tell people: 'If God could perform such a miracle for me, he could do it for you too.'' Laymen were targets too Onboard the plane taking Orozco to Guatemala was Francisco Arteaga, a Catholic layman imprisoned in June 2024 for voicing his concerns over Ortega's restrictions on religious freedom. 'After 2018, when the protests erupted, I started denouncing the abuses occurring at the churches,' Arteaga said. 'For example, police sieges on the parks in front of the parishes.' Initially, he relied on Facebook posts, but later he joined a network of Nicaraguans who documented violations of religious freedom throughout the country. 'We did not limit ourselves to a single religious aspect,' said Arteaga, whose personal devices were hacked and monitored by the government. 'We documented the prohibitions imposed on processions, the fees charged at church entrances and restrictions required inside the sanctuaries.' Arteaga witnessed how police officers detained parishioners praying for causes that were regarded as criticism against Ortega. According to CSW, the government monitors religious activities, putting pressure on leaders to practice self-censorship. 'Preaching about unity or justice or praying for the general situation in the country can be considered criticism of the government and treated as a crime,' said CSW's latest report. Building a new life Prison guards also denied a Bible to Arteaga, but an inmate lent him his. It was hard for him to go through the Scripture, given that his glasses were taken away after his arrest, but he managed to read it back-to-back twice. 'I don't even know how God granted me the vision to read it,' said Arteaga, who couldn't access his diabetes medicine during his imprisonment. 'That gave me strength.' He eventually reunited with his wife and children in Guatemala, where he spent months looking for a new home to resettle. He recently arrived in Bilbao, Spain, and though he misses his country, his time in prison shaped his understanding of life. 'I've taken on the task, as I promised God in prison, of writing a book about faith,' Arteaga said. 'The title will be: 'Faith is not only believing.''
