Canada is deporting Nigerians at a pace not seen in a decade, and most aren't criminals

Canada deported 366 Nigerians in the first ten months of 2025. Another 974 are currently in the "removal in progress" queue. Nigeria is now the only African country in Canada's top 10 deportation list, sitting fifth globally behind India, Mexico, the United States, and China.

The number that should stop you: 83% of all removals are failed asylum seekers. Not criminals. Not people who broke rules after arriving. People who applied for protection, were told no, and are now being sent back.

This matters because of who goes to Canada as an asylum seeker.

Not the professional japa route, the nurses, the software engineers, the postgrad students on study permits. The asylum route is typically used by people who ran out of other options. Failed visa applications. Irregular border crossings. People who fled something real and gambled on the refugee process.

Canada's refugee acceptance rate for Nigerians has been declining for years. The Immigration and Refugee Board rejected the majority of Nigerian claims in recent cycles, citing that Nigeria, despite everything, doesn't meet the threshold of a country where systematic persecution is occurring.

The bar is high. The situation at home is bad. The gap between those two realities is where 366 people got deported.

The broader picture: Canada is simultaneously cutting study permits by 50%, reducing temporary work entries, and deporting nearly 400 foreign nationals weekly, the highest weekly rate in over a decade. Processing times for Nigerian applications have stretched from 8 to 11 weeks.

Nigerians who qualify through Express Entry, points-based, professional credentials, language scores, are still finding paths in. Canada still needs skilled workers and issues 380,000 permanent residencies annually.

But the people in the middle, too qualified for asylum, not credentialed enough for Express Entry, are the ones landing in the removal queue. That's the part of the japa story that doesn't show up in the success posts.