About 5,144 Nigerians may be affected in the initial stage of the ongoing deportation exercises from the United States of America as President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants continues.
The figure includes non-US citizens of Nigeria origin in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, and Enforcement and Removal Operations, ERO, non-detained docket with final orders of removal from the US and those already in ICE detention.
Nearly 3,000 “criminal aliens” have been arrested in the first few days of the operation in the wake of the mass deportation.
Though the initial arrest and deportation were focussed on illegal immigrants with known criminal records, there is a growing concern that attention would soon shift to include other illegal immigrants, especially those in the non-detained list with orders for their removal from the states.
Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is mum on the matter, as it has yet to release official statements since the exercise was announced.
However, on Tuesday, the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, NiDCOM, in a press release said that the Federal Government had already put in place an inter-agency committee to tackle the matter should there be mass deportation of Nigerians by Donald Trump’s government.
Data shared by ICE indicated that a total of 1,445,549 non-US citizens from different nationalities are on the non-detained docket with final orders of removal as at November 2024, with 3,690 being Nigerians.
Fresh data from ICE also indicated that an additional 1,454 are currently in detention and are billed for deportation to Nigeria.
According to the data, 772 of the 1,454 Nigerians in ICE custody were arrested and detained for criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, while the rest were arrested for other immigration violations, such as visa overstay.
It further showed that 417 were arrested and removed as at November 2024, while 884 were removed between 2019 and 2024.
The disclosure by ICE comes at a time the newly-inaugurated administration of President Trump is implementing an immigration policy aimed at ridding the United States of illegal immigrants.
A “non-detained docket” refers to a list maintained by ICE that includes individuals they believe are removable non-citizens currently residing in the United States but are not held in ICE detention.
Essentially, they are people that are not currently in ICE custody but are still considered targets for potential deportation action.
Usually, ICE, with the power of final order of removal from an immigration court, will go ahead to deport a person on the non-detained docket, even though a person may be deported without a court order under the process of expedited removal. (With Agency Reports)
