sentences:  At different points during the 1890s to the 1940s Nicaragua, and many other Latin American countries, established laws or issued ordinances that restricted the entry of Arabs, forbade the stay of Arabs already present in the country and curtailed the expansion of their commercial activities.Although the exact number of Palestinians is not available, Guzmán writes ""it is possible that from the end of the nineteenth century until 1917, when the Ottoman Empire entered its final decline, during World War I, 40 Palestinian families arrived in Nicaragua"".By 2000 it was estimated that there were 500 families of Palestine Arabs and Palestinian descendants in Nicaragua.