The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement has expelled 902 Nigerians since the start of fiscal year 2019, according to data from the agency?s 2024 Annual Report.

This is as 3,690 more remain in limbo with removal orders hanging over them.

Although removals fell from 286 Nigerians in 2019 to 138 in 2024, reflecting a 51.7 per cent decline over the six years, ICE?s country-by-country deportation ledger showed Nigerians removals spiked during Donald Trump?s first two full years in office, 2018 and 2019, and may spike in 2025 under renewed crackdown.

Across Africa, Nigeria still accounts for the largest share of U.S. deportations.

Senegal was in second place with 716 removals, with 410 of those in 2024 alone.

Ghana sits third with 582 removals, followed closely by Mauritania with 491 removals.

Removals to Mauritania rose from 58 in 2023 to 353 in 2024.

The report attributed the spike to the Electronic Nationality Verification expansion programme, which shortened the paperwork cycle by allowing consular officers to clear identity checks electronically rather than in person. Officials say the ENV cut manifest-approval times from weeks to days and allowed weekend-chartered flights to countries such as Mauritania, Senegal and Ghana.

Other African countries on the list were Egypt (467), Somalia (406), Democratic Republic of Congo (395), Liberia (379), Kenya (335), and Guinea (294). The rest were scattered among Angolans (293), Cameroonians (288), The Gambia (22), Sierra Leone (165), Morocco (161) and Ethiopia (141), amongst others with smaller caseloads.

Outside Africa, the highest removals are to America?s near neighbours.

Mexico topped the deportation chart with 434,827 removals between fiscal 2019 and 2024, more than double that of any other nationality on the agency?s books.

Analysts say enforcement activity remained high in the Northern Triangle, with Guatemala recording 185,713 expulsions and Honduras 142,349, while El Salvador logged 65,268 during the same period.

Colombia accounted for 30,724 returns and Ecuador 26,847 due to a surge in charter flights in 2023. Peru followed with 11,554. Caribbean and Bolivarian states recorded smaller but still significant totals: the Dominican Republic saw 13,904 deportations, Nicaragua 13,350 and Venezuela 4,962 over the six-year period. ICE reports attributed this to a mix of travel-document diplomacy and a surge in border encounters.

Together, the 10 countries accounted for almost three-quarters of the 271,484 people ICE says it deported in 2024, the agency?s busiest year since before COVID-19 .

According to ICE, legal authority for such removals rests on the Immigration and Nationality Act.

It said foreign nationals might be expelled for unlawful entry, overstaying visas, fraud, certain criminal convictions or national-security grounds.

In January 2017, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13768, which broadened ICE?s enforcement to include anyone without lawful status.

ICE arrest numbers jumped 30 per cent that year as Nigerian removals rose accordingly.

In 2019, ICE carried out 267,258 removals, the highest yearly total in nearly a decade.

That year, Nigerian removal numbers rose to 286. This was part of a long list of 3,690 Nigerians whom ICE had identified and placed on its non-detained docket by late 2020, as revealed in January 2025.

Nigeria had the second-highest number of nationals facing deportation in Africa then, after Somalia?s 4,090 cases.

In 2021, President Joe Biden directed ICE to prioritise the most serious criminals and recent entrants for removal, leading to a sharp drop in deportation numbers.

ICE removals fell to about 59,000 in 2021, the lowest in decades, and Nigerian removals dropped to 78 that year.

The following year, even fewer Nigerians (49) were sent home amid pandemic-related travel restrictions and continued cautious enforcement. But a Supreme Court ruling in July 2024 allowed the Department of Homeland Security to fully reinstate those guidelines, prioritising public safety and national security cases.

ICE defines ?removal? as the confirmed compulsory movement of a non-citizen out of the United States following an order of removal. This often follows a final removal order by an immigration judge or administratively via mechanisms like expedited removal at the border.

ICE says the journey from arrest to repatriation typically runs through a patchwork of local jails, immigration courts and consular clearances.

Once an order of removal is final, ICE?s Enforcement and Removal Operations division must secure travel documents, field medical clearances and book a commercial seat or, more commonly for West-African returns, a dedicated charter flight.

The agency says electronic verification has shaved days off that timeline, which is one reason the 2024 total dwarfs the previous two pandemic-ridden years.

In carrying out Trump?s recent deportation order, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have raided several establishments suspected of harbouring illegal immigrants and made arrests.

At a meeting with US Ambassador to Nigeria, Richard Mills Jr., in February, Nigeria?s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, called on the United States to ensure a humane deportation process for Nigerians.

?We are asking as a country whether they will be given ample time to handle their assets or will they just be bundled into planes and repatriated?? she queried, highlighting concerns over the emotional and financial impact on deportees and their families.

She argued that deportations, particularly for persons with no history of violent crime, should not be traumatic or abrupt.

The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission had earlier said it was ready to welcome Nigerians deported from the US.

?The Federal Government has set up an inter-agency committee, comprising the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NiDCOM, Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Office of the National Security Adviser, should there be mass deportation of Nigerians from the US,? NiDCOM?s Director of Media and Corporate Affairs, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, said in an interview. (Sunday PUNCH)

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