Canada intensified its immigration enforcement drive in 2025, with 366 Nigerians deported between January and October, the fastest pace in more than a decade, according to statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency removals programme obtained by Saturday PUNCH. The data also show 974 Nigerians are currently in the CBSA’s “removal in progress” inventory, awaiting deportation, as of the latest update on November 25, 2025. Nigeria ranked ninth among the top 10 nationalities deported from Canada, and Nigeria stands fifth in the removal-in-progress list, highlighting the ongoing and intensified focus of Canadian authorities on immigration enforcement.
The CBSA figures illustrate a broader crackdown that Canadian officials say targets security, criminality, and asylum claims. In the 2024-2025 fiscal year, Canada removed 18,048 people at a cost of about $78 million, with approximately 83 percent of removals stemming from failed refugee claims and around four percent for criminality. Nigeria is the only African country in the 2025 top-ten deportation list. The data indicates a fluctuating trend, with 339 Nigerians deported in 2019, a number that fell in subsequent years before rising again to 366 in just ten months of 2025—an eight per cent increase over the 2019 figure.