Transit migration entrepreneurship: Explaining Nicaragua’s state-controlled, profit-seeking transit migration industry

Abstract

How and why do governments develop profit-seeking migration industries around transit migration? Restrictive international migration policies, such as border externalization and migrant rentierism, compel migrants to transit through multiple countries to reach their final destinations, creating new dilemmas and opportunities for transit country governments. Between 2021 and 2025, thousands of migrants from across the globe arrived in Nicaragua via charter and commercial flights, aiming to then reach the United States. Nicaragua’s authoritarian Ortega-Murillo regime actively facilitated and profited from this influx by eliminating visa requirements and partnering with foreign brokers to coordinate flights, generating revenue amid economic instability and patronage needs. Using Nicaragua as a case study, we introduce the concept of transit migration entrepreneurship (TME), a phenomenon in which governments capitalize on migrants’ desires to reach nearby countries by proactively developing a profit-seeking transit migration industry. Engaging with research on weaponized migration, migrant and refugee instrumentalization, and the broader migration industry, we argue that TME is most likely to emerge in authoritarian or other illiberal contexts characterized by economic incentives for new revenue, indifference to international pressure, and a political will to exploit transit migration for economic gain. In an era of global migration, other countries may follow Nicaragua’s example.