A Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University, Nimi Wariboko, has said that the sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the United States has triggered palpable fear among Nigerians living in Donald Trump’s America.
The don spoke virtually from the US on the Friday edition of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme aired on Channels Television.
“Here, of course, there are a good number of Nigerians that don’t have papers. So, there are worrying,” Wariboko said while describing the mood of the Nigerian community in the US barely three weeks after Trump resumed at the Oval Office.
“If you are a pastor, if you are a leader in those communities, you are worried for those people; you have concerns for them. Are they going to be deported?
“Some of them are hiding – there is that palpable fear that they could be raided. If you quarrel with your neighbours, they can call the immigration enforcement unit. There is that palpable fear. They are fearful, they are angry, they don’t know what is going to happen.”
Trump, who took over power for the second term on January 20, 2025, vowed mass deportation of “criminal aliens” who illegally gained entry into the United States.
Already, mass raids have been carried out at homes, schools, workplaces, and shopping centres where undocumented immigrants were picked up and deported to places like India, and Guatemala, among others.
Mixed reactions have trailed Trump’s immigration move with some commending his action while others begrudge it.
Wariboko said undocumented Nigerian immigrants in America are angry with their countrymen on Nigerian soil for not being compassionate.
“They (undocumented Nigerian immigrants) are saying at the end of the day, if this great replacement holds, they are going to be sent back home. Do you have jobs to absorb them?”
He said “even those with legal papers and have acquired US citizenship could still be in jeopardy” with the proposed reversal of the birth citizenship laws.
$20bn Diaspora Inflow At Risk?
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The professor argued that the Nigerian government should be interested in defending its citizens in the United States because any immigration policies that lead to deportation would affect the Nigerian economy as Nigerians overseas contribute a significant amount to the local economy.
According to the World Bank, remittance from Nigerians living abroad reached $20bn in 2023.
He said, “They are saying even if you don’t like us, people in the US send billions of dollars home every year to sustain the Nigerian economy, to sustain their families. Even for the sake of economic interest, Nigeria should care about that because there is money that comes from here to sustain different families.
“For many families, if they didn’t have people abroad; in Europe, in Asia, in the United States or Canada, their economic well-being will be below what they have in the country. So, if people know that policies are about defending your economic interest, then they will be defending their fellow citizens because it is in the national interest of Nigeria.
“If anybody in the world is coming up with policies that will affect the Nigerian economy, the government should defend Nigerians in that regard.”
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Trump’s latest move is a reminder of his immigration policy during his first term as POTUS. In 2020, the Trump administration added Nigeria to a list of countries whose citizens will in some way be restricted from entering the United States because Nigeria didn’t comply with identity management and information sharing criteria.
Approximately 376,000 Nigerian immigrants live in the United States as of 2015, according to official sources. Nigeria is the largest source of African immigration to the United States.
The United States is one of the top destinations for migrating Nigerian youths and the middle class in search of greener pastures. Nigerians in America form a bulk of the total diaspora bulge which contributes more than $20bn annually to Nigeria’s economy, according to the 2023 data from the World Bank.
