Skip to main content
Nicaraguans confident of Ortega victory – Steve Sweeney reports
Morning Star's international editor barred from travelling to country to cover elections
Motorcyclists pass a poster depicting Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega yesterday

“ARE” you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” US authorities infamously asked those entering the country during the cold war.

Nowadays the questions may have changed, but the intention is the same — to keep out undesirables.

It seems that I am one of those undesirables — as well as a communist — finding myself banned from transiting through the US on my way to Nicaragua. “Travel unauthorised,” my ESTA application rejection email said. They don’t tell you why.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
IRON HEEL: Police officers storm Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) headquarters in Ankara on Sunday
Features / 26 May 2026
26 May 2026

CLAUDIA WEBBE looks at how Britain’s Nato ally has upped the stakes in its effort to silence domestic dissenting voices

Tom Mooney Company from the Lincoln Battalion, during the Spanish Civil War, Jarama, Spain, 1937
History / 24 February 2026
24 February 2026

CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history

BLAME GAME: Nicaraguan President Manuel Ortega. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate/Creative Commons
Features / 17 July 2025
17 July 2025

The corporate media have been quick to point the finger over the murder of a Nicaraguan opposition figure, but where is the actual evidence, ask KELLY NELSON and ROGER D HARRIS

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum looks on during her morn
Features / 20 June 2025
20 June 2025

DAVID RABY reports on the progressive administration in Mexico, which continues to overcome far-left wreckers on the edges of a teaching union, the murderous violence of the cartels, the ploys of the traditional right wing, and Trump’s provocations