At a custom clothing shop in Manhattan earlier this year, Sheynnis Palacios was getting measured for new clothes. Miss Universe, after all, always needs fresh outfits.
For the inside of her bespoke jacket, she asked for a sewed sketch of a mouse — a tribute to a nickname given to her by her late great-grandfather because she loved sneaking cheese from the refrigerator. She also wanted the suit to have blue and white fringe.
“It’s for my country,” she told Ksenia Konovalova, the clothier. “The flag.”
As the two women chatted about different styles of jackets, Ms. Konovalova asked Ms. Palacios if she was still based in Nicaragua. The room fell awkwardly silent. Finally, a Miss Universe assistant stepped in to say that Ms. Palacios lived in New York as part of her duties.
Normally, a Miss Universe crown is a cause for celebration in a country. When Ms. Palacios won, it was the first time a contestant from Nicaragua, a country of seven million people, had claimed the crown.
Instantly, the 24-year-old from humble beginnings became a hero in her homeland as people celebrated her in Nicaragua’s streets, singing the national anthem and waving the country’s flag.
But things quickly got complicated.
The authoritarian Nicaraguan government of President Daniel Ortega went from initially applauding Ms. Palacios’ win to cracking down on those who supported her, including arresting family members of the director of the Miss Nicaragua contest, which had selected Ms. Palacios to represent the country at the global competition.
Both the director, Karen Celebertti, and Ms. Palacios had taken part in large anti-government protests in 2018 that led to a brutal government crackdown. After her crowning, Ms. Palacios became a symbol of resistance to some people.
Previous winners from other countries have triumphantly enjoyed homecoming tours with the crown. But what was supposed to be a joyous accomplishment has instead become a delicate road for Ms. Palacios to navigate, avoiding the ugly truth that she or the people she loves might face repercussions if she returns.
As her year as Miss Universe comes to a close this month, Ms. Palacios has yet to return home.
In interviews, she is happy to talk about her upbringing, the importance of her family and her love of her country. But she is always careful about what she says and won’t talk about the Nicaraguan government. She said she measures her words because she is a “global ambassador” for the Miss Universe Organization and not just Nicaragua.
Perhaps an additional reason, albeit an unspoken one: Though her grandmother and younger brother reportedly left for the United States in April after being granted humanitarian parole — which she declined to address — she still has other family and friends in Nicaragua.
Ms. Palacios insisted that she is not a Miss Universe who cannot go home. She said she simply hasn’t been able to return because of her schedule visiting 31 countries in the past year, from Indonesia to Brazil to Greece, all trips organized by the Miss Universe Organization.
“It’s been a really beautiful experience,” she said. “It’s made me grow as a woman. It’s made me see different opportunities that I didn’t know could occur, like seeing the other side of the world.”
Ms. Palacios said she “of course” has plans to return to Nicaragua “to enjoy the beautiful beaches of my country, the biodiversity we have, to spend time with my people.”
Although she said she doesn’t have a date yet, her presence is eagerly awaited.
“She left Nicaragua, but Nicaragua hasn’t left her soul or her heart,” Hanny Javier Falcón, who met Ms. Palacios in college and remains one of her best friends, said in a telephone interview.
“We’re hoping that soon we can welcome her and spend time with her,” continued Mr. Falcón, who lives in Nicaragua. He said that they wanted to celebrate her return the same way they sent her off to the Miss Universe pageant in El Salvador last year. “It’s what we’re all waiting for.”
Others, though, have suggested different reasons for Ms. Palacios’s lack of a homecoming. In May, Anne Jakrajutatip, a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, wrote in a social media post that was later deleted that Ms. Palacios was in “indefinite exile” and referenced the “cruel intentions” of the Ortega government.
In an interview, Ms. Palacios denied being exiled. “My country hasn’t closed the doors, nor have I received any documentation or information or email where they tell me I’m not welcome,” she said.
Born in the capital, Managua, Ms. Palacios was raised by her mother, her grandmother and great-grandparents. At 16, during her final year of secondary school, she entered her first beauty pageant and was crowned Miss Teen Nicaragua.
“That changed my life because I was a girl,” she said, “but exposed me to the public eye and in Nicaragua’s show business.”
It put her on a path toward bigger competitions. While in college, she won the Miss World Nicaragua title in 2020, and then the Miss Nicaragua crown in 2023 — completing the trifecta of beauty pageants she had dreamed about winning as a child.
Because of her family’s economic situation, she received a scholarship to study communications at the Central American University, a prestigious college run by Jesuit priests that was seized by Nicaraguan authorities last year.
To help make ends meet, Ms. Palacios helped her mother sell homemade fried dough treats called buñuelos on the street, which she was teased about and even given the nickname “Miss Buñuelos” by a government-run television channel.
“At that stage of my life, it didn’t hurt,” she said. “I knew who I was.”
Like many Nicaraguans in 2018, Ms. Palacios, then a college student, participated in the anti-government protests that the Ortega government viewed as a challenge to its rule.
After she won Miss Universe, Mr. Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, started to claim that Ms. Celebertti and her family, who also demonstrated, were part of an “anti-patriotic conspiracy” to overthrow them. Ms. Celebertti’s husband and teenage son were both arrested, and eventually released earlier this year. They were expelled from Nicaragua and joined Ms. Celebertti and her daughter, who were already in exile in Mexico.
In April, Ms. Murillo announced a new and different beauty pageant, run by the government.
Ms. Murillo didn’t respond to requests for comment.
While the government never directly said anything against Ms. Palacios, the vice president issued a vague denouncement of the “gross exploitation and the rough and evil terrorist communication that seeks to convert a beautiful and deserved moment of pride and celebration into a destructive coup.”
A United Nations investigation released last year likened Nicaragua’s track record on human rights to that of the Nazis. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights estimated in a September 2023 report that more than 2,000 people have been arbitrarily detained in Nicaragua since the 2018 protests. The authorities have also stripped citizenships, taken the homes of its detractors and arrested religious leaders, artists and political opponents.
As of this summer, nearly 350,000 Nicaraguan asylum seekers had fled the country, according to U.N. figures.
Despite the government’s clampdown on those backing her, Ms. Palacios said she was unafraid to return home, whenever that may be.
“I have a lot of faith,” she said. “I have represented Nicaragua with a lot of pride and honor. I don’t represent any political flag.”
Ms. Palacios loves to cook and still does so with her mother, who left Nicaragua for San Francisco in 2022. When Ms. Palacios visited her for Christmas, they made and delivered traditional Nicaraguan tamales to local Nicaraguans.
Throughout her globe-trotting, Ms. Palacios said she has encountered Nicaraguans everywhere. During a parade in the Philippines in May, a fan handed her the Nicaraguan flag. Sitting atop a convertible while wearing the Miss Universe crown and sash, she hugged the flag and cried.
“It fills me with a lot of emotion, happiness, pride to see Nicaraguans all over the world being successful, following their dreams, careers and goals,” she said.
Back in New York, she had other reminders, from her request for the suit and even in the apartment she was moving out of. Hanging in her bedroom: a Nicaraguan flag.
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