Nigeria says reversing U.S. visa ban will take 'enormous resources'

Overturning a U.S. ban on Nigerians seeking immigrant visas will take “enormous resources”, but the nation is making progress, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Thursday.

Nigeria was among six countries in an expanded version of U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban, announced in January, which blocked their citizens from obtaining U.S. visas that can lead to permanent residency.

U.S. officials cited issues such as sub-par passport technology and failure to sufficiently exchange information on terrorism suspects and criminals.

Nigerian Interior Minister Ogbeni Aregbesola asked the U.S. ambassador in Abuja to drop the ban, but also chaired a committee to address U.S. concerns.

In a statement on Thursday, Buhari said that after suggestions from a report by the committee, they had “fully resolved” two out of six U.S. concerns, “substantially satisfied” two others and had made “some progress” on the last two.

But he said they were still drafting a “workable plan” for the report’s full suggestions, which require “enormous resources.”

“I am delighted that this progress, especially the uploading of Lost and Stolen Passport and Travel Documents, has been acknowledged by the United States Government,” Buhari said.

A U.S. embassy spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Buhari said Nigeria would harmonize citizen identification data held by different parts of government, create a national criminal management system modelled on INTERPOL and start a national criminal DNA laboratory.

His statement did not specify what Nigeria had done already. A spokesman for Buhari directed questions to Aregbesola, who could not be immediately reached.

Nigerians can still obtain visas for study, work and travel in the United States, but, in the 2018 fiscal year, just 8,000 Nigerians obtained immigrant visas.

Reuters

Canada and Nigeria working to combat migrant smuggling, human trafficking and irregular migration

The Honourable Marco E. L. Mendicino, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, today reaffirmed Canada's commitment to fighting human trafficking, migrant smuggling, and irregular migration as a series of initiatives were unveiled in Nigeria.

On the eve of the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, Canadian officials joined representatives from the governments of Nigeria and Switzerland as well as international and civil society organizations to launch a series of initiatives to assist the Nigerian government in their efforts to disrupt human trafficking and smuggling operations, as well as irregular migration.

Minister Mendicino noted that Canada is pleased to be partnering with Nigeria on 3 new initiatives to improve migration and border management, supported by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and ARK, an international communications company. Each organization will participate in various initiatives being undertaken in Nigeria.

The IOM will continue to roll out the entry and exit border control system, known as the Migration Information and Data Analysis System, at the Abuja and Lagos international airports. This will support Nigeria's ability to protect its borders by managing the flow of travellers into and through its country, while helping it to identify criminal travellers and possible human trafficking and migrant smuggling cases.

UNODC will work with Nigeria to counter human trafficking and migrant smuggling operations by identifying and responding to these criminal activities, through improved data gathering and data analysis techniques.

ARK will use its communication expertise to support Nigeria to enhance its human trafficking and irregular migration deterrence campaigns, through integrating and applying data analysis into its targeted messaging.

This is part of the Government of Canada's commitment to combating human trafficking around the world, which includes investing $4 million over the next 2 years in the initiatives in Nigeria.

Quote

"The partnerships we are announcing today will disrupt human trafficking and migrant smuggling rings, and help to stop those who would prey on some of the world's most vulnerable for their own gain. Canada will continue to work alongside our partners and world leaders in fighting trafficking and smuggling operations to support safe migration, and strengthening data analysis and increasing awareness is a critical component of that."

– The Honourable Marco E. L. Mendicino, P.C., M.P., Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

Cision

Pandemic travel restrictions leave Nigerian mother stranded in Dubai with newborn quadruplets

A Nigerian mother and her quadruplets remain in Dubai because of coronavirus travel restrictions that have prevented them from traveling home, her husband told CNN.
Tijani Abdulkareem, 32, said his wife, Suliyah, 29, gave birth to the babies -- two boys and two girls -- on July 1.
The couple, who live in Dubai, began making plans to relocate his wife to Nigeria to give birth when they found she was having quadruplets in January.
They share a hostel accommodation with others, and it would have been difficult to rent a bigger place with their combined income, according to Abdulkareem, who works as a cook at a restaurant in the city.

But the government banned all commercial international flights when the pandemic struck in Nigeria in March, shortly after it recorded its first case.

Only diplomatic and essential flights are currently permitted into Nigeria's airspace and Abdulkareem says the travel restrictions, had frustrated their plans.

Although repatriation flights to Nigeria from Dubai are taking place, they are few and far between.
Abdulkareem said the couple hoped that the travel restrictions would ease ahead of her planned departure to Nigeria in May, a few months before her August delivery date.

"We thought the travel situation would improve ... but the lockdown made it difficult to get flights," he said.

Mounting medical bills

While they were still making arrangements for her travel to Nigeria, Abdulkareem said his wife went into premature labor and had the babies via an emergency C-section at the Latifah Women and Children hospital in Dubai.

The babies' early arrival has also unsettled the couple's finances.
Abdulkareem said his wife stopped work as a hospital cleaner some months ago and their meager income was not enough to get health insurance.

The family has incurred thousands of dollars in medical debt since the babies were born and the bill is mounting as doctors say the quadruplets may remain for another six weeks at the hospital before they can go home, Abdulkareem said.

The couple owe around $120,000 and are incurring daily charges of $5000 to keep the babies in separate incubators.
The father told CNN they have been relying on the goodwill of the hospital and the generosity of the Nigerian community in Dubai. "The hospital has really helped us.
They discharged my wife and are doing all they can to ensure that the babies are doing well. The Nigerian community has also been like a family to us," Abdulkareem said.

'It is still a miracle'

The community, with contributions from some UAE residents and other nationals who read the news on local media, have been able to raise (AED) 30,000 (around $8000) to pay part of the family medical bills, Abdul-Hakeem Anifowoshe, a member of the diaspora community in Dubai told CNN.

They have also secured rent for two months at a bigger apartment for the couple for when the babies are discharged from the clinic, Anifowoshe said.

"We're keen on ensuring the family gets ongoing support towards the welfare of the mother and the quadruplets even when they get back to Nigeria," Anifowoshe said.

Chairwoman of the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission Abike Dabiri-Erewa, whose agency has been evacuating citizens stuck abroad, said the country's embassy in Dubai had contacted the family.
"The mission is on top of the matter and is in constant touch with the family," Dabiri-Erewa said.

The new father says he's anxious to resettle his family back in Nigeria where he believes there will be more family members to help out with caring for the babies. However, they may have to wait a little longer.

Nigeria's airspace remains closed indefinitely to international travel, and authorities have not announced when commercial flights will resume.

For now, the family is reveling in the joy of the new arrivals.

"I never expected to have quadruplets. It is still a miracle," Abdulkareem said. "And I believe that can happen again to get my family to Nigeria," he added.

CNN

Nigerian immigration to Canada is booming

In 2019, Nigeria became the fourth-leading source country of new immigrants to Canada, behind India, China, and the Philippines.

A total of 12,600 Nigerians gained permanent residence last year, which represents a tripling of Nigerian immigration to Canada since 2015.

The vast majority of Nigerians came to Canada as economic class immigrants. The main way that Canada manages economic class immigration applications is through Express Entry, and 65 per cent of Nigerian immigrants gained Canadian permanent resident status through Express Entry in 2019.

Nigeria was actually the third-leading source country of those who received an invitations to apply (ITA) for permanent residence under Express Entry last year.

Why Nigerian immigration to Canada is booming

Several factors explain the rise in Nigerian immigration to Canada.

The oil-rich nation has seen its economic growth slow since the decline in global oil prices in 2014. Nigeria’s economy was growing by around 5 per cent per year leading up to 2014, but growth has since weakened to around 2 per cent annually.

As a result, more Nigerian professionals have sought to come to countries such as Canada in pursuit of economic opportunity.

Canada is an attractive destination for Nigerians because it offers economic opportunities in sectors which are appealing to Nigerian professionals, such as oil and gas, ICT, health care, and other STEM-related fields.

Nigerian professionals may also fare well under Express Entry’s Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). Factors such as English-language proficiency, having a high level of education, and possessing professional work experience are all taken into consideration when immigration candidates submit Express Entry profiles, factors which the Nigerian professionals who immigrate to Canada possess.

Given that English is their mother tongue, Nigerians have a significant advantage under Express Entry compared with most other nationalities since English-language proficiency comprises a major component of the CRS.

Post-coronavirus: Canada set to welcome more Nigerian immigrants

Once the coronavirus has been contained and we return to a sense of normalcy, we should continue to expect higher levels of Nigerian immigration to Canada.

Global oil prices have plummeted once again, which will create economic challenges for oil-rich countries around the world.

Canada’s rising immigration levels over the coming years will open up more economic class immigration spots, including through Express Entry.

Canada’s openness to immigrants also runs in stark contrast to other countries which have historically welcomed high levels of Nigerian immigrants, such as the United States and Great Britain. The recent U.S. decision to expand its travel ban to include Nigeria may result in more prospective Nigerian immigrants looking to Canada.

More Nigerians are also studying in Canada. There are currently around 12,000 Nigerian students in Canada, and these students will be well-placed to transition to permanent resident status due to their youth, English language fluency, Canadian education, and Canadian work experience.

When you add these factors together, it is reasonable to expect further increases in the number of Nigerian immigrants welcomed by Canada.

CIC News

Trump is turning Canada into a haven for Nigerians

Nigerians have become central figures in the most heavily reported Canadian migration story in recent years, as the largest cohort streaming through Canada’s most controversial entry-point: the ditch at Roxham Road, in small-town Quebec, that became a magnet for asylum seekers.

More quietly, though, Nigerians are playing a significant role in this country’s overall immigration story: the numbers of people arriving through conventional channels—mainly as skilled workers—have spiked, nearly tripling since 2016. Canada now brings in more permanent residents from the west African country than it does from major traditional sources like Pakistan and the United States; in 2019, the flight of upper-middle class professionals like doctors and tech workers, along with their families, helped put Nigeria behind only India, China and the Philippines and as source countries for Canadian immigration, federal data show.

Now, this trend seems sure to accelerate thanks to that key disrupter of global migration patterns and norms, Donald Trump.

Last week, the Trump administration expanded the U.S. travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries to block or restrict immigration visas from four African states—Nigeria, Eritrea, Tanzania and Sudan—as well as Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar. As usual, the Department of Homeland Security dresses these bans up in bureaucratic language about vetting and national security. But it’s not lost on anybody that, amid his many hostile public rants about foreigners, the president has grumbled to aides that tens of thousands Nigerian visitors would never “go back to their huts” in Africa.

These new restrictions will still allow Nigerians and others to come to United States on tourism or student visas—unlike the full clampdown on people from Iran, Syria and other countries Trump targeted in 2017—but prohibit the foreign nationals from obtaining permanent U.S. status through green cards. It’s most serious ripple effect is occurring in Nigeria, heavily populated yet oil-rich, with a burgeoning professional class. “New U.S. travel ban shuts door on African’s biggest economy,” a New York Times headline notes.

Johnson Babalola, the Nigerian-born managing partner of a Toronto immigration law firm, says he’s received a sharp uptick in inquiries from Nigerians this week. But they’re not all from Africa. A number are coming from Nigerians who live south of the border, including students and even professionals who already have U.S. green cards.

Why are Nigerians who’ve already securely immigrated to the U.S. suddenly wary? Because this new ban shuts the door to family reunification. “If I’m a green card holder and I can’t even bring in my spouse or my children or other relatives, then that’s tough,” says Babalola. “So you ask yourself is there somewhere I can go to that’s more open?

“Canada, quite frankly, is the obvious choice.”

Canada’s Express Entry program for skilled workers, which the Harper government launched in 2015, has a clear and predictable points system that already helped make it easier for well-educated and experienced newcomers to immigrate here. The number of Nigerians who immigrated to Canada rose from about 4,000 in 2014 to 12,000 last year, numbers from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada show. Meanwhile, the number granted permanent residency in the United States during Trump’s tenure has been declining even before the current ban takes effect, according to data compiled by Robert Falconer, an immigration policy researcher at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy. During the last two years, Canada accepted more Nigerian immigrants than the U.S. did.

Falconer has also tracked newcomers to Canada from countries covered by Trump’s initial travel ban: Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. In most cases, Canada’s intake of permanent residents from those countries rose, suggesting that this country will again pick up newcomers when its neighbour slams other doors.

Though reports suggest the Nigerian government is striving to maintain good relations with the United States, and to remedy the issues the administration claims are forcing it to put the ban in place, skilled workers may still prefer Canada, Falconer predicts. “If I’m a Nigerian professional considering a move to North America, I’d value certainty in the process over the whims of some mercurial presidency,” he says. Chad, which is Nigeria’s central African neighbour, was on Trump’s initial travel ban but came off a year later. Canada saw a spike in immigration from Chad during the ban and a decline afterwards, Falconer notes (though intake from Chad remained higher than pre-ban levels). The duration of Nigeria’s ban will determine whether Canada gets a smaller or larger bump, he adds.

Professionals from the rest of the developing world may also steer clear of U.S., lest their applications be suddenly ripped up because of a new Trump policy. Just as frustratingly, they could get into the country only to abruptly lose the chance to bring in children and spouses. “Other people from other nations will now be asking themselves: will we be next?” Babalola says.

A rise in conventional immigration, though, will not be the only effect of the new ban. To some, it appears tailor-made to induce Nigerians who land in the U.S. to enter Canada using the Roxham Road method—walking in and seeking asylum. They won’t be able to immigrate to Trump’s country, but they can get tourist visas to fly to New York and head straight to the Quebec-New York border, as thousands of Nigerians already have. The new policy will foreclose their option of seeking asylum in the United States.

But asylum claims by Nigerians dipped last year after efforts by Canadian and American officials to curb the pattern, and many of those who still choose the route are bound for disappointment. Only one-third of Nigerian refugee claims are being accepted by Canadian adjudicators, far lower than the typical success rate for asylum seekers, according to the most recent Immigration and Refugee Board data analysed by York University law professor Sean Rehaag. More than 10,000 more claimants from Nigeria await their hearings in a badly backlogged system.

Qualified professionals would have far more certainty coming in through the Express Entry, Babalola says. They and their relatives outnumber the number of Nigerians trying to move here as refugees. And thanks to the latest bit of migration upheaval the U.S. president has wrought, we can expect more of Africa’s best and brightest to boost the Canadian economy and plug our skills shortages.

By Jason Markusoff

Macleans

Nigerians in limbo after Trump adds Nigeria to US travel ban list

Ikenna is in a bind. On the one hand, the US green card holder has been advised not to travel outside the United States for a year to avoid the risk of failing to meet the eligibility criteria for citizenship. On the other hand, his newly wedded wife in Nigeria cannot visit him. She had applied for a tourist visa days before the US suspended a "drop box" procedure in May 2019 that allowed frequent visitors to reapply without being subjected to the interview process - but her application was denied.

The healthcare professional said his wife was told that since she was married to a permanent resident, he should file an immigrant visa application on her behalf instead. As such, Ikenna quit his job in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, and relocated to the US in late July to begin the process. In the meantime, his spouse applied for a business visa in October to no avail.

And now things have become even more complicated.

Last week, the White House said immigrants from Nigeria and five other countries will no longer be eligible for visas allowing them to live in the US permanently, expanding its controversial travel ban policy. A presidential proclamation on January 31 cited Nigeria's failure to comply with security and information sharing requirements, and its high "terror" risk to the US as reasons for imposing the restriction.

"I filed for her (immigrant visa application) in November and now the ban has been announced," says a frustrated Ikenna. "I've been a beneficiary of the long, tedious, nebulous process to obtain my legal permanent residence, and now I'm experiencing the same process to get the visa for my wife."

He remains unconvinced about the ban, arguing non-immigrant visa applicants were less scrutinised and therefore more of a threat to US security than those applying for immigrant visas.

"The [US government] is not just punishing Nigerians," he said about the travel restrictions, scheduled to come into effect on February 21. "They're punishing American citizens," he added, referring to the thousands of other Nigerians processing immigrant visas for their immediate family members in Nigeria.

That sentiment also rings true for Chienye, a product marketing manager who is currently petitioning for an immigrant visa for his mother in Nigeria. He feels the ban is unfair and infringes on his rights as a US citizen.

"Melania Trump herself used the same immigration method to bring her parents to the United States," he said of the wide of US President Donald Trump. "That's one of the luxuries of being a citizen. You can extend that and bring close family members to come be with you here."

A citizen since 2018, 37-year-old Chienye says he was excited about bringing his mother over as she has never visited in the 15 years he has lived in the US, first in Minnesota and then Washington states. It was something he had hoped to change now that he was financially solvent to pay for her trip.

"My mum is getting old and I want to bring her here to relax and enjoy herself even if it's for a few months."

While non-immigrant visa applicants remain unaffected, Nigerian student Onyinye is worried about the ban's knock-on effect. The mother of two is completing her nursing prerequisites in Maryland.

"I don't want a situation where I have to renew my papers and can't because of the ban," she said, speculating on the possibility the US government might unofficially limit the numbers of student visa issued to Nigerians. "I just don't want to be undocumented here."

In 2018, Nigerians were issued a total of 7,922 immigrant visas, the second highest among African nations. Over half of that number went to immediate relatives of US citizens. Incidentally, following visa fee hikes and suspension of the interview waiver Drop Box application last year, applications for non-immigrant visas dropped by 21 percent.

Approximately 30,000 Nigerians overstayed their non-immigrant visa in 2018, making them the third-largest defaulters behind Venezuelans and Brazilians, according to data from the US Department of Homeland Security. Some insist this may have informed the recent restrictions. Others maintain the ban is a ploy to further curtail the number Nigerians coming to the US.

"I think the Trump administration is trying to limit immigration from black and brown countries," argued Chienye, adding most Nigerians in the US are educated and dismissing the security reasons cited for the move.

"The only reason Trump is banning Nigerians is that he doesn't want black immigrants in the United States, and Nigerians make up a huge portion," he said.

For Onyinye, the right to live and work legally in the US supersedes the possibility of acquiring citizenship in the long run. And though she counts herself fortunate that her husband and children live with her, she wishes she could bring her mother over.

"If that's not possible, I'll have to work more so I can visit Nigeria to see her more often," she said before acknowledging the ban might prevent her from re-entering the US. "Until that's cleared up, I guess no trips for me."

According to immigration lawyer Leila Mansouri, who has handled cases for Iranians and Iranian Americans affected by the 2017 Muslim ban that restricted travellers from Iran and several other Muslim-majority countries, the text of the recent travel ban is not clear on whether Nigerians with non-immigrant visas are barred from applying for permanent residency.

"Based on how the [US government] handled it for Iranians, I think that [Nigerians] already in the US will be able to naturalise or get married and adjust their status," she said, adding that those who leave the US might find it difficult to re-enter.

Last week, the Nigerian government announced it had established a committee to address the updated requirements. On Tuesday, Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama appeared in a joint news conference in Washington with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, stating Nigeria had been "blindsided with the announcement of the visa restrictions." He maintained, however, the country was in the process of fulfilling the demands and had already "ticked most of the boxes".

"Essentially, there were security measures that were taken with regards to electronic [and] lost and stolen passports," noted Onyeama, adding Nigeria was working to make data for the aforementioned and information on suspected terrorists available to the US and member countries of Interpol "very soon".

Like many in Nigeria and the US, Onyinye is hopeful both countries will reach a resolution.

"I reckon the ban will only be for a short time," she said.

By Shayera Dark

Al Jazeera

Nigeria working to have U.S. travel ban lifted

Nigeria has begun working on the security and information sharing requirements for the lifting of a U.S. travel ban on prospective immigrants from the African nation, Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Onyeama said Nigeria was ‘blindsided’ by the U.S. decision on Friday to add it and five other nations to an expanded version of the U.S. visa ban.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued an expanded version of his travel ban on Friday as part of a presidential proclamation which said Washington would suspend the issuance of visas that can lead to permanent residency for nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Nigeria.

Temporary visas for tourists, business people, students and workers from those nations will not be affected, it said.

U.S. officials said the countries failed to meet U.S. security and information-sharing standards, which necessitated the new restrictions.

“We’ve identified all those requirements and we had actually started working on all them,” Onyeama said. “It was very gratifying to come here, speaking to U.S. officials and to understand more clearly the reasoning behind this.”

Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa, is the biggest country on the list whose citizens will be suspended from U.S. visas that can lead to permanent residency.

Pompeo also said Nigeria could do more in sharing important national security information, adding that he was ‘optimistic’ that Abuja would move in that direction.

He said some of the areas were security measures taken with regards to passports and information about criminal histories and suspected terrorist information being made available.

“With regards to lost and stolen passports, we’re putting in place the architecture that will now make that – the information and the data on that - immediately available to the U.S. and all the member states, member countries of Interpol,” Onyeama said.

He added that once all the criteria was met, Nigeria was looking forward to being taken off this visa restriction list. He did not predict a time frame.

The original travel ban, issued in 2017, barred nearly all immigrants and travelers from seven countries with majority Muslim populations. The policy was revised amid court challenges, but the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld it in 2018.

Trump has made tougher immigration enforcement a central focus of his 2020 re-election campaign. His travel ban policy is popular with Republican supporters.

The new travel ban will take effect on Feb. 21, according to the proclamation.

Reuters

U.S. travel ban shuts door on Nigeria

The newlyweds had already been apart for half their yearlong marriage. Miriam Nwegbe was in Nigeria. Her husband was in Baltimore, and until she could join him, everything was on hold: finding a home together, trying for their first baby, becoming an American family.

Then, on Friday, their lives were thrown into disarray by the expansion of President Trump’s ban on immigration to include six new countries, including four in Africa. Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, was one of them.

“America has killed me,” Ms. Nwegbe’s husband, Ikenna, an optometrist, texted her when he heard. “We are finished.”

A year after the Trump administration announced that a major pillar of its new strategy for Africa was to counter the growing influence of China and Russia by expanding economic ties to the continent, it slammed the door shut on Nigeria, the continent’s biggest economy.

he travel restrictions also apply to three other African countries — Sudan, Tanzania, and Eritrea — as well as to Myanmar, which is accused of genocide against its Muslim population, and Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet state.

The ban will prevent thousands of people from being able to move to the United States.

The initial ban, which was put into effect in 2017, restricted travel from some Muslim-majority countries as part of Mr. Trump’s plan to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists.” It has already affected more than 135 million people — many of them Christians — from seven countries.

With the new expansion, the ban will affect nearly a quarter of the 1.2 billion people on the African continent, according to W. Gyude Moore, a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, a research group, potentially taking a heavy toll on African economies — and on America’s image in the region.

“Chinese, Turkish, Russian, and British firms, backed by their governments, are staking positions on a continent that will define the global economy’s future,” he said, adding, “One hopes that the United States would follow suit and fully engage with the continent — but that hope fades.”

The rationale for the new restrictions varies depending on country, but the White House announcement said that most of the six countries added to the list did not comply with identity-verification and information-sharing rules.

And Nigeria, it said, posed a risk of harboring terrorists who may seek to enter the United States. The country has been hit brutally by the Islamist group Boko Haram, though the extremists have shown little sign that they have the capability to export their fight overseas.

Critics, many of whom also denounced the initial ban, saw something far more venal at play.

“Trump’s travel bans have never been rooted in national security — they’re about discriminating against people of color,” Senator Kamala Harris, the former Democratic presidential candidate, declared on Sunday. “They are, without a doubt, rooted in anti-immigrant, white supremacist ideologies."

Two Democrats still in the race also weighed in. Elizabeth Warren described the measure as a “racist, xenophobic Muslim ban.” Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called it “a disgrace.”

And Nancy Pelosi, the house speaker, said Democratic lawmakers would push ahead with a measure to forbid religious discrimination in immigration policy.

Beyond those people who may now never make it across American borders, the new ban could also affect millions who have no plans to travel to the United States themselves but may have benefited from the billions of dollars in remittances visa holders send home each year.

The United States may also emerge a loser, studies suggest. Nigerians are among the most successful and highly educated immigrants to America. (Mr. Trump, demanding to know why immigration policies did not favor people from countries like Norway, once disparaged those from Africa and Haiti, and said Nigerians would never go back to their “huts” if they were allowed in.)

Hadiza Aliyu lives in Borno, the Nigerian state at the epicenter of the Boko Haram crisis that has left tens of thousands dead. But she thought she had found a way out.

Ms. Aliyu was preparing to apply to move to the United States, where she once studied and where her two brothers live.

She was furious when she heard about the extended ban.

“Trump has been looking for a way to get at us Africans for a very long time, and finally got us,” Ms. Aliyu said. “To hell with Republicans and their supremacist ideas.”

Mika Moses moved to Minnesota from Nigeria nine years ago to join his mother and siblings, who were allowed entry after the family was attacked in religious riots in their northern city of Kaduna in 1991. His wife, Juliet, and their daughter were planning to join him, but are stuck in Kaduna, where Ms. Moses sells soda in a small store.

She said they were heartbroken by the news that the move would now be impossible.

“I have been struggling to raise our daughter alone,” she said. “Why would Trump do this to us, after we have waited for nine years?”

Nigerians already living in the United States have been calling lawyers to try to figure out whether they will have to leave. Marilyn Eshikena, a biomedical research ethicist, has lived in the United States for the past seven years, but her visa expires this year. Her employer sponsored her application for a green card.

“If it turns out that everything needs to stop, they will feel cheated, because they spent a lot of money on this process,” Ms. Eshikena said. “I will also feel cheated, because all the time that I spent working here will ultimately be for nothing. I can’t even imagine what packing up and leaving will mean for me.”

Her departure may also have serious consequences for her brother, who is studying in Canada. Ms. Eshikena has been sending part of her earnings to help pay his rent.

Some Nigerians praised Mr. Trump for his decision, arguing it might make it more difficult for those responsible for stealing government money back home to find cover in the United States, and force the country’s leaders to be more honest and work harder to develop Nigeria.

In 2018, 7,922 immigrant visas were issued to Nigerians. Of these, 4,525 went to the immediate relatives of American citizens, and another 2,820 to other family members. An estimated 345,000 people born in Nigeria were living in the United States in 2017, according to the census bureau.

If the visas are coveted in Nigeria, they are just as prized in African countries like Eritrea, where government repression is rampant and those who try to leave face obstacles and danger. With more than 500,000 refugees living outside the country, Eritrea was the ninth-largest source of refugees in the world in 2018, according to the United Nations, but fewer than 900 Eritreans received immigrant visas to the United States that year.

Abraham Zere, a journalist who moved to the United States from Eritrea in 2012, had dreamed of living in the same country as his mother since leaving home. On Saturday, he said his plans to bring her to the United States had been thrown into disarray. His family has been in constant communication on the messaging platform WhatsApp trying to understand what the ban will mean for them.

“This decision complicates everything and creates fear,” said Mr. Zere, 37, a doctoral candidate at the School of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University.

Mr. Zere and other Eritreans say they can’t go back. They fear they will be punished for criticizing the government or leaving without approval.

“If I can’t be reunited with my mother,” Mr. Zere said, “it nullifies the whole notion of protection and punishes innocent citizens for reasons they had no slightest part in.”

With nine siblings scattered across Europe, Africa, and the United States, Mr. Zere said their family has never had a full family portrait taken.

The economic consequences of the ban could be far-reaching, experts said.

“Being cut off from the largest economy in the world systematically is problematic,” said Nonso Obikili, a Nigerian economist.

The biggest impact, he said, could be on remittances.

Nigerians abroad send home billions of dollars each year, $24 billion in 2018 alone, according to the accounting firm PwC. With Nigeria’s economy highly dependent on oil and its unemployment rate at 23 percent, this money provides a lifeline for millions of its citizens.

The new restrictions come at a time when the United States says it wants to jockey for power in Africa, particularly through its “Prosper Africa” initiative announced last summer, which aims to double two-way trade and investment.

“If on the one hand you’re trying to make a push into Africa, and on the other hand you’re barring the largest African country by population from moving to your country, then it does send mixed signals,” Mr. Obikili said.

In January 2017, Mr. Trump’s travel ban targeted several other African nations, including Chad, Libya, and Somalia. Chad was later removed from that list, but the executive order halted the plans of thousands of Somali refugees living in camps in Kenya who were about to travel to the United States and start new lives.

According to the United States Department of Homeland Security, nearly 30,000 Nigerians overstayed their nonimmigrant visas in 2018. The number of Nigerians visiting the United States dropped sharply after the Trump administration made it harder for visitors to obtain visas last summer.

The new restrictions affect those who want to move to the United States, not visit it.

The six countries newly added to the immigration ban are not easily categorized together by religion. Nigeria, for example is thought to be home to more than 200 million people, roughly half of them Muslim and half Christian. Of the four African countries newly singled out, only Sudan has a significant majority of Muslims.

The United States has left Sudan on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, even as the country works to reverse decades of authoritarian rule under President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was deposed in April.

“This ban contributes to the overall impression that Sudan remains a very fragile state,” said Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council, a research group.

Many people from the countries newly targeted by the ban said the uncertainty was the hardest thing to bear. Ms. Nwegbe, the newlywed, who works as the chief operating officer of a tourism company that tries to encourage people to visit Africa, said the ban came as she and her husband were building their future.

The New York Times

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would add more countries to his travel ban list. While he gave no details, a source familiar with the proposal said the tentative list included seven nations - Nigeria, Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Sudan and Tanzania. [nL1N29R224]

An announcement was imminent, said Mohammed, adding that while Abuja had reached out to the U.S. administration since learning about the plan, his government did not get any warning and had not been told any possible reason.

“We are doing everything we can,” Mohammed told Reuters in an interview. “A travel ban is going to send the wrong signal to investors, it is going to stifle the good of the country and vulnerable people who need medication and schools will be the most affected.”

Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, is a U.S. anti-terrorism partner and has a large diaspora residing in the United States.

It is not clear what sort of restrictions Nigeria might face if added to the list and the U.S. administration has so far not commented. Under the current version of the U.S. travel ban on foreign countries, citizens of Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, and some Venezuelan officials and their relatives are blocked from obtaining a large range of U.S. immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

“Nigeria has done very well in the area of fighting terrorism,” Mohammed said, adding that Washington help drive militant groups such as Islamic State out of Nigeria.
DEAF EARS

Asked about Nigeria’s move to close its land borders last August with neighbours such as Benin and Niger to fight smuggling, Mohammed said the move had been a success and boosted food production inside the country.

“Every attempt in the last 16 years to persuade our neighbours, especially Niger, to adhere to the ECOWAS protocol of transit has fallen on deaf ears,” he said, referring to the trade protocol governing the exchange of goods between the Economic Community of West African States to which Nigeria belongs. “No country can allow that it can become a dumping ground for goods from elsewhere.”

In 2015, the central bank banned the use of its foreign exchange to pay for rice imports and has backed loans of at least 40 billion naira ($131 million) to help smallholders boost output, before moving to a full border closure last summer.

Mohammed said his government was happy with how the move had spurred local production. Yet the border closure also worsened price pressures, with inflation at 11.98% in December, rising for the fourth straight month and well outside the central bank’s band of 6%-9%.

“We see this only as temporary,” he said, adding he expected inflation to fall into the single digits by 2023.

Reuters

Trump administration plans to put Nigeria on travel ban list

The Trump administration is planning to add seven countries - Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania - to its travel ban list, U.S. media reports said on Tuesday.

Some countries will face bans only on some visa categories, the Wall Street Journal reported. The list of countries was not final and could yet change, website Politico said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with the Journal that he was considering adding countries to the travel ban, but declined to state which ones. Politico said an announcement was expected as early as Monday.

The move is likely to sour ties between the United States and the countries affected under the expanded ban.

Nigeria, for example, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, is a U.S. anti-terrorism partner and has a large diaspora residing in the United States.

A senior Trump administration official said that countries that failed to comply with security requirements, including biometrics, information-sharing and counter-terrorism measures, faced the risk of limitations on U.S. immigration.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The State Department declined to comment.

Under the current version of the ban, citizens of Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as some Venezuelan officials and their relatives are blocked from obtaining a large range of U.S. immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

Chad was previously covered under the ban but was removed in April 2018.

Citizens of the countries can apply for waivers to the ban, but they are exceedingly rare.

By Sophie Tanno

Reuters

Cardi B pledges to get Nigerian citizenship

 Cardi B's announcement that she wants to seek Nigerian citizenship has set off a Twitter feud between her West African fans in friendly rivals Nigeria and Ghana.

The Grammy-winning rapper visited both countries last month on her African tour.

Her announcement in a tweet on Friday criticized the U.S. airstrike in Iraq that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and sent Middle East tensions soaring.

"Its sad this man is putting Americans live in danger. Dumbest move Trump did till date ... I'm filing for my Nigerian citizenship," she tweeted.

Many in West Africa saw her tweet as proof that she preferred Nigeria.

Ghanaians were quick to point out the pitfalls of living in Africa's most populous nation, where traffic jams and power cuts are more visible than opulent nightclubs and luxury hotels.

"Hope you have a generator to power your house (because) they don't have light but we do," one user tweeted, adding an emoticon of a Ghana flag.

Some fans in Ghana expressed concern for her safety, warning about the Nigeria-based Islamic extremist group Boko Haram.

Confusion, pride

But most Nigerian fans were quick to offer up a passport exchange, underscoring the mix of pride and confusion that the 27-year-old star would prefer Nigeria to America.

This week she asked fans to weigh in on whether her Nigerian name should be CHIOMA B or Cadijat.

Cardi B, who was born Belcalis Almanzar, is of Afro-Caribbean descent, tracing her roots to Trinidad and the Dominican Republic.

It was not immediately clear how the rapper might acquire citizenship in Nigeria, though a number of celebrities have recently been given honorary citizenship in other African countries.

British actor Idris Elba now has a passport from Sierra Leone, his late father's birthplace. And fellow rapper Ludacris recently acquired citizenship in Gabon after marrying a woman from the Central African nation.

AP

Nigeria had the biggest drop in visitors to the US last year due to Trump visa policies

The travel measures taken against Nigeria by the United States last year are starting to have a clear and, potentially, long-term effect.

Data from the US travel and tourism office shows Nigeria recorded the largest global drop-off in visitors to the US. As of October 2019, 34,000 fewer Nigerians traveled to the US compared to the previous year—a 21% drop. After a sustained period of growth between 2011 and 2015, the number of Nigerian visitors to the US started to plateau in 2016 until the big drop-off last year.

The second largest drop was for visitors from Venezuela (17.7%). The South American country is in the midst of an economic and political crisis which has seen more than four million people flee the country and the US is restricting entry to Venezuelan migrants.

The dip in Nigerian visitors to the US followed a string of visa clampdown measures by the Trump administration targeting Africa’s largest economy.

After indefinitely suspending its visa interview waiver for Nigerian applicants (the waiver allowed frequent travelers renew their visa without going through in-person interviews each time), the Trump administration also raised visa application fees for Nigerians by including additional “reciprocity fees” ranging from $80 to $303 depending on the class of visa. And even though the Nigerian government immediately slashed visa application fees for American applicants in a bid to get the US to reverse its price increase, the reciprocity fees remain in place.

The measures followed reports that the Trump administration was looking to impose visa restrictions on countries whose citizens have a track record of overstaying beyond the validity of their short-term US visas. As it turns out, Nigerians were the highest ranked African country for US visa overstays in 2018.

Even though official data confirms the effects of the measures, there were already warning signs the administration’s policies were having an adverse impact on potential travelers. The policies also spawned fear-fueled rumors among locals as well: mid-last year, the United States embassy in Nigeria was forced to deny a widespread rumor that it had placed a ban on issuing student visas to Nigerians.

The tougher overall visa stance by the Trump administration comes at an inopportune time for middle class Nigerians who are increasingly emigrating amid fears of economic uncertainty back home. Nigeria’s once promising economy remains mired in sluggish growth since a 2016 recession while unemployment continues to climb. With many middle class professionals searching for alternatives, the number of Nigerians seeking legal immigration pathways to the US, UK and, increasingly, Canada, has risen sharply over the past half-decade.

But despite the Trump administration’s policies, the US remains a popular destination for Nigerian students seeking foreign degrees as the economic impact of spending by Nigerian students studying in the United States reached $514 million over the past academic year.

Quartz

Nigerian students wrongly deported to Bosnia plead to be sent home

 Two Nigerian student table tennis players are begging authorities in Sarajevo to return them to their home country after they were wrongly deported to Bosnia by Croatian police, who mistook them for undocumented migrants.

In an interview with the Guardian, Abia Uchenna Alexandro and Eboh Kenneth Chinedu said they were victims of injustice and that the only reason they were forcibly taken to Bosnia is that they are black.

“We hold the truth and we have evidence of it,” said Chinedu via telephone from an immigration centre in east Sarajevo where the pair are detained. Uchenna and Chinedu, students at the Federal University of Technology Owerri in Nigeria, arrived in Croatia with a regular visa on 12 November, on their way to participate in the fifth World InterUniversities Championships, held this year in Pula.

The pair, both 18, left Pula for the Croatian capital, Zagreb, after the tournament and were supposed to fly to Lagos on 18 November. “The night before our departure, on the 17th, we checked out from the hostel and went for a walk in Zagreb,” said Chinedu. “Suddenly … we were stopped by the police who asked us for our identification documents. We tried to explain that our passports were in the hostel and that we had a regular visa, but they paid no attention to what we were saying.”

The officers allegedly mistook them for undocumented immigrants, put them in a van and transferred them to the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina where, that day, Croatian authorities had gathered together a group of migrants who were intercepted as they were attempting to cross the country.

“There were men from Pakistan at the border,” said Chinedu. “They had been caught by the Croatians while attempting to cross the border from Bosnia. Police eventually ordered us to move through the woods. I refused and begged them one more time to check our status, but they wouldn’t listen. They kicked me in the back and told me they would shoot me if I didn’t move.”

Uchenna and Chinedu were eventually deported to Bosnia and ended up in a camp in Velika Kladuša, where thousands of migrants live in cramped tents without water or heating, and with temperatures as low as -2C.

The plight of the two students has made the news around the world and sparked a row between Croatia and Bosnia. Last weekend they were transferred to an immigration centre in east Sarajevo.

“Those people are victims of illegal acts on the Croatian side,” Dragan Mektić, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s minister of security, told al-Jazeera. “It is obvious that Croatian police forcibly displaced them.”

Police in Croatia denied any wrongdoing and raised doubts over the table tennis players’ intentions, suggesting they were lying. According to the police, another Nigerian who participated in the championship had attempted to cross the border with Slovenia from Croatia a few days before.

“Police officers have already witnessed cases of individuals who make an attempt, even abusing their participation in sports competitions in Croatia, to remain in the country or continue their journey illegally to other European countries,” Croatian police said.

“This is not true,” said Chinedu. “We were legal in Croatia. And our visa was valid until the 3 December. If we wanted to seek asylum, we could have asked for it because we had visas.”

The interior ministry in Zagreb said the men were stopped by police on 18 November, the day they were due to depart, and not the day before as the Nigerians claimed. However, the police’s version of events does not explain why the officers sent the students to Bosnia, knowing they had entered the country on a flight to Zagreb and not from Bosnia and knowing that they had a valid visa until 3 December.

In the meantime, authorities in Sarajevo are working on the case. The presence of the Nigerians in Bosnia – even if instigated by Croatian police – is technically illegal, given that their visa was valid only in Croatia, and which has now has expired.

“The case of two students from Nigeria is being handled by the ministry of security of Bosnia and Herzegovina as it is an internal issue involving illegal entrance to Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the minister counsellor for the foreign affairs of Bosnia wrote in an email to the Guardian.

Dragan Mektić said: “Respecting legal procedures, we now have to take them back to Croatia. It is obvious that they have Croatian visas, that they are in Bosnia-Herzegovina illegally.”

The Nigerians said they were willing to go back to Croatia, but only on one condition: “If they take us back to Croatia, we want to have UN escorts with us. We will not go to Croatia without a UN representative. We are scared of the Croatian police after what they did to us.”

“We want to go back to Nigeria,” said Chinedu. “Please, help us, send us home immediately.”

The Guardian

Related story: Croatia 'wrongly deports' two Nigerian table tennis players to Bosnia

Croatia 'wrongly deports' two Nigerian table tennis players to Bosnia

Croatian police have deported two Nigerian table-tennis players to Bosnia and Herzegovina, claiming they were in the country illegally, despite the pair having arrived in Croatia with valid visas.

Abie Uchenna Alexandra and Kenneth Chinedu, students from Owerri Technical University in Nigeria, arrived in Zagreb on November 12 to participate in the sport's World University Championships in Pula, according to Hina, the government-owned national news agency.

Following the table tennis tournament, they headed from Pula to Zagreb, scheduled to fly back to Nigeria via Istanbul on November 18.

The pair settled into a hostel on November 16 and the following day went to explore the city, reported the Sarajevo-based Zurnal. They were stopped by police as they got off a tram, and arrested as they were not carrying their documents with them.

"They took us to the police station. We tried to explain who we were and that we had left our documents in the hostel. They didn't pay attention to what we were saying," said Chinedu.

He said police officers then put them in a van and said they were "taking them to Bosnia". They drove the pair to the border, along with several others, and dumped them on the Bosnian side, near a forested area.

"I refused to go into the woods," said Chinedu. "The officer told me he would shoot me if I didn't move."

After being chased, they reached the Miral Camp near Velika Kladusa in Bosnia.

That was two weeks ago.

Legal stay in Croatia

Chinedu said they immediately contacted one of their fellow students who had stayed back in Zagreb, and asked him to send them their passports. However, they now faced a new problem: they were stuck in a camp and their Croatian visas were due to expire when they were due to get their flight home.

The students complained to representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which runs the Miral Camp, where it was confirmed that the students had been staying in Croatia legally.

Dean Sinkovic from the Faculty of Economics and Tourism in Pula confirmed to Al Jazeera that the students were competing in the table tennis tournament, that they had visas and an invitation letter from the university.

Emir Prcanovic, director of the Your Rights Organization, which is currently providing legal aid to the Nigerian students, told Al Jazeera that the documentation from the Croatian consulate proves the students' legal status.

Alberto Tanghetti, a representative of the Inter-University Sports Committee and the organiser of the competition in Pula, said there were a total of five participants from Nigeria - four students and a professor - and confirmed they all had valid visas.

"The two students were participating in the competition, they had a Croatian visa, return plane tickets from Zagreb to Istanbul and from Istanbul to Lagos," Tanghetti said.

Opposition outrage
Hina, meanwhile, announced "the Ministry of Interior does not know how these students ended up in Bosnia", adding "their legal departure from Croatia has not been recorded".

Ranko Ostojic, an opposition leader who chairs the Committee on Internal Policy and National Security, demanded the police explain themselves.

The students were on Wednesday, December 12 transferred to a field office of the Bosnian Foreign Service in Bihac, reported Al Jazeera's Boris Gagic. After five hours, they were released, accompanied by police officers, and made no statements to the media.

It is understood they are being returned to the Miral camp in Velika Kladusa, where they are currently accommodated with refugees and migrants.

"Those people are victims of illegal acts of the Croatian side," said Dragan Mektic, Bosnia and Herzegovina's minister of security. "Respecting legal procedures, we now have to take them back to Croatia … It is obvious that they have Croatian visas, that they are in B&H illegally. From their statements, it is obvious that Croatian police forcibly displaced them and we have to bring them back there."

Al Jazeera

Food prices push Nigeria inflation to 17-month high due to border closures

Higher food prices pushed up annual inflation in Nigeria last month after borders with neighboring countries were closed in a crackdown on smuggling.

Nigeria closed parts of its borders in August to fight smuggling of rice and other goods. The head of customs confirmed last month that all trade in goods via land borders had been halted indefinitely.

Annual inflation was 11.61% in October, up from 11.24% in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday — the highest rate since May 2018. Consumer inflation had dropped to it lowest in almost four years in August.

A separate food price index showed inflation at 14.09% in October, compared with 13.51% a month earlier.

“This rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of meat, oils and fats, bread and cereals, potatoes, ham and other tubers, fish and vegetables,” the statistics office said in its report.

“The rise in food inflation does suggest that border closures may have played a part in temporarily pressuring prices higher,” said Razia Khan, chief economist for Africa and the Middle East at Standard Chartered.

Shoppers at a market in the capital, Abuja, told Reuters the price of many food items, particularly rice, had risen in the last few weeks.

“Food items are very expensive in the market. When you go to a store they will tell you that is because the border is closed,” said housewife Naomi Nguher, who said she was given this reason for high rice prices at four different shops.

Sherifat Ajala, a rice wholesaler in the commercial capital Lagos, said Nigeria’s bad roads were delaying the transportation of the grain, further preventing the supply from meeting high demand.

“Trucks will spend almost two or three weeks on the road before they bring the rice,” he said.

Last week the West African country, along with neighboring Benin and Niger, agreed to set up a joint border patrol force to tackle smuggling between the nations after a meeting between their foreign ministers.

The central bank is due to set its benchmark interest rate next Tuesday. The bank, which has targeted single-digit inflation, held its main interest rate at 13.5% at its last meeting, in September.

“Given the increase in inflation, we now expect that policymakers will leave their key rate on hold,” John Ashbourne, senior emerging markets economist at London-based Capital Economics, said in a note on Monday.

Reuters

Nigerian 'sex slavery' ring goes on trial in France

Twenty-four suspected members of a sex trafficking ring accused of forcing Nigerian women into prostitution in France go on trial Wednesday (Nov 6), the latest case to highlight the growing use of Nigerian migrants as sex slaves in Europe.

Nigeria was the main country of origin of the migrants arriving across the Mediterranean to Italy in 2016 and 2017, though their numbers have since dropped.

Many of the arrivals were women and girls lured to Europe with false promises of jobs as hairdressers or seamstresses, only to find themselves selling sex on arrival to repay their debts.

Nigerians now outnumber Chinese or Eastern European sex workers on the streets of France and some other European countries.

Last year, 15 members of a Paris-based female-led pimping ring known as the "Authentic Sisters" were sentenced to up to 11 years in prison for forcing girls into sex slavery in France.

Many were themselves former trafficking victims-turned-perpetrators.


Similar gangs have also been dismantled in Italy and Britain.

The investigation in Lyon, where police estimate half the city's sex workers are Nigerian, began after authorities received a tip about a Nigerian pastor accused of exploiting several sex workers who lived in apartments he owned.

The pastor, Stanley Omoregie, has denied the charges, which include aggravated pimping and slavery.

But in the transcript of a conversation submitted to the court, he is heard saying he wanted "those with beautiful bodies, who can be controlled, not those that cause problems".

The prosecution has presented him as the kingpin of a family-based syndicate made up of 10 women and 14 men, including one of Europe's most wanted women, Jessica Edosomwan, accused of recruiting destitute women in Nigeria for the sex trade in Lyon, Nimes and Montpellier.

Edosomwan, who is believed to be on the run in the Benelux countries, Italy or Germany, will be tried in absentia.

FROM PROSTITUTION TO PIMPING

The UN has estimated that 80 percent of young Nigerian women arriving in Italy - their first port of call in Europe - are already in the clutches of prostitution networks, or quickly fall under their control.

The accused in Lyon cover the entire gamut of sex trafficking activities, from iron-fisted "madams" and violent pimps as well as drivers of the vans in which the women perform sexual acts, and those tasked with laundering the proceeds of the trafficking.

Prosecutors estimate that 17 alleged victims, aged 17 to 38, made up to 150,000 euros (US$166,000) a month for the syndicate, selling sex for as little as 10 euros.

Most of the women come from Benin City, capital of Nigeria's southern Edo State, a human trafficking hotbed with a long history of dispatching women and men to Europe to earn money to send back home.

Many told investigators they had taken part in "juju" or black magic rituals before leaving Nigeria, during which they promised to repay the money they owed for their passage to Europe.

Many of the woman took the perilous migrant trail across the Sahara Desert to Libya and then across the Mediterranean to Italy before winding up in Lyon.

Among the accused is a 28-year-old former prostitute who was herself released from sex slavery after paying off her debts and who in turn brought over another young woman from Nigeria.

Months of police wiretaps and surveillance led to the arrest of the suspects between September 2017 and January 2018.

They risk 10 years in jail if convicted.

CNA

Related stories: Gang charged with sex trafficking girls from Nigeria arrested in Italy

Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'  

Nigeria border closure extended to end of January 2020

Nigeria will keep its land borders closed to trade until at least January 31, 2020, the customs spokesman told Reuters on Sunday.

Nigeria launched a partial border closure in August to tackle smuggling of rice and other goods. Last month the head of customs confirmed that all trade via land borders was halted indefinitely.

Joseph Attah, spokesman for the Nigerian customs service said the “present phase” of the closure would end on January 31, 2020, and that would not be the end of the closure.

“The operation is in phases, it will continue until the set objective is attained,” Attah told Reuters by phone.

A private memo sent by the customs service comptroller for enforcement, Victor Dimka, to colleagues called the closure operation an “overwhelming success”, but said there were some strategic objectives yet to be achieved.

The memo did not outline which objectives these were.

Reuters

Related stories: Border crisis in Nigeria fueled by rice

Smuggling booms despite Nigeria border closure

Nigeria lowers visa fees for Americans after US visa hike

It’s taken just a day for the Nigerian government to respond to the Trump administration’s latest visa clampdown measure on Nigerians.

It has reduced visa fees for Americans traveling to Nigeria from $180 to $150 in response to the US embassy’s introduction of a “reciprocity fee” for Nigerians. The US embassy claims the new reciprocity fee, ranging from $80 to $303 and only to be paid for approved visas, has been introduced to “eliminate that cost difference” between visa application fees for both countries.

The move was in line with a Trump executive order in 2017 for the US secretary of State to, among other things, adjust fee schedules “to match the treatment of United States nationals” by other countries. The US embassy claimed it has been in talks with Nigerian authorities for 18 months to align visa fees.

For its part, Nigeria’s government says the decision to lower visa fees for American applicants was taken months ago but was not implemented given the transition in government. (Nigeria’s president Buhari only inaugurated a new cabinet last week after winning reelection for a second term in February).

It’s unclear if the new visa fee reduction for American applicants to Nigeria will also see the US Embassy revise its reciprocity fee structure for Nigerians.

Some international business people and tourists from countries including the United States have long complained about the high expense of Nigerian visas and the difficulty of obtaining them. The Buhari government has targeted improving this with programs including visa-on-arrival for business people and potential investors. Yet, Nigerians also face challenges with the US visa application process, which is renown for its intensive paperwork (even for short stay visas) and involves daunting consular interview sessions that often end in vague reasons for application rejections.

The quick reaction from Nigerian authorities is a change of tack from earlier measures by the Trump administration to clamp on Nigerian visa applications. In May, the US suspended a visa waiver program for Nigerian applicants and has reportedly considered issuing visas for shorter validity periods in response to the high rates of Nigerian nationals overstaying visas.

By Yomi Kazeem


Quartz

Nigerian dies during deportation process from Canada

Calgary police say Canada Border Services Agency officers are not to blame for the death of a Nigerian man during his deportation last year.

The passenger on a Calgary-Amsterdam flight had an altercation with two CBSA officers before takeoff on Aug. 7.

The plane returned to the gate and police responded to find Bolanle Alo in medical distress.

The 49-year-old was taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police say an investigation found the death was not caused by the border service officers, who were acting in a reasonable and appropriate manner.

The chief medical examiner also determined Alo died of natural causes.

Alo’s relatives have demanded information in the case.

Their lawyer, Elias Munshya, has said they want to know what happened when Alo was detained, what happened in detention and what happened on the airplane before he died.

Documents from the Immigration and Refugee Board said Alo, whose first name is listed as Bolante, came to Canada in 2005 and made a refugee claim on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

He was, however, denied at every stage and ordered removed from Canada in February 2018.

The documents said he had been co-operative with the CBSA but didn’t want to return to Nigeria.

“Mr. Alo is adamant that he will face harm if he is returned to Nigeria and has consistently told officers that he will not return to Nigeria on his own and that he would only return if he is forced to,” stated the documents.

Once he was ordered removed, Nigerian High Commission officers interviewed Alo and raised concerns that he could become violent.

By Lauren Krugel

City News

US makes new rules for visa applications for Nigeria

Nigeria accounted for over 25% of non-immigrant visas issued to Africans in 2018 alone—but that may be set to change.

The United States embassy has announced an immediate indefinite suspension of interview waivers for visa renewals for applicants in Nigeria. Known as “drop-box,” the interview waiver process allowed Nigerian applicants who met certain eligibility criteria to renew their visas by submitting their passports and supporting documents for review without going through a new in-person interview each time.

The process mainly targeted regular visitors to the US who have a history of applying for and receiving visas. One of the requirements for the interview waiver was for an applicant to have previously received a two-year visa.


With the new waiver suspension, all applicants—first time and recurring—will now be required to appear for in-person interviews at US embassies in Nigeria.

A likely consequence could be a drop-off in the number of non-immigrant visas issued to Nigerians. Compared to the drop-box process which resulted in a high rate of visa renewals for regular visitors, in-person interviews will likely result in increased scrutiny, a much longer process and, by extension, fewer visas issued.

There have already been local reports of visa drop-box submissions taking much longer to process over the past year, hinting at increasing scrutiny. Increasingly, drop-box applications have also been returned unapproved with requests for in-person interviews.

The possibility of a tougher outlook for applicants is noted in the US embassy’s statement as it says one of the reasons it has suspended the interview waiver is to “promote legitimate travel.” It’s rhetoric that is consistent with the Trump administration’s stance on immigration.

The suspension also comes one month after news that Trump administration has been considering new immigration measures to impose visa restrictions on countries whose citizens have a track record of overstaying beyond the validity of their short-term US visas. Nigeria accounted for the third highest number of US visa overstays last year.

The proposed measures included reducing visa validity periods, making it tougher for citizens from countries like Nigeria to receive visas at all and the long-term possibility of outright bans.

Quartz