The Canadian government deported 366 Nigerians in 2025, official data has revealed.
Statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) removals programme also show that 974 Nigerians are currently listed in the agency’s “removal-in-progress” inventory and are awaiting deportation.
The data, last updated on November 25, 2025, ranked Nigeria ninth among the top 10 nationalities deported from Canada in the period under review. Nigeria also placed fifth among countries with the highest number of persons awaiting removal.
A breakdown of the figures indicates fluctuating deportation trends involving Nigerians over the years. In 2019, Canada deported 339 Nigerians, a number that declined to 302 in 2020, 242 in 2021 and 199 in 2022.
The spike in deportations comes amid an aggressive immigration crackdown by Canadian authorities, with the CBSA now removing nearly 400 foreign nationals weekly, the highest rate in over a decade.
In the 2024–2025 fiscal year, Canada deported 18,048 individuals, spending approximately $78 million on removal operations.
Under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the CBSA is legally mandated to remove any foreign national with an enforceable removal order.
Grounds for inadmissibility include security concerns, human or international rights violations, criminality, organised crime, health reasons, financial issues, misrepresentation, and non-compliance with immigration rules.
About 83 per cent of those removed are failed refugee claimants whose asylum applications were denied, while criminality accounts for roughly four per cent of deportations.
Canadian law recognises three types of removal orders:
Departure orders, requiring individuals to leave within 30 days;
Exclusion orders, barring re-entry for one to five years; and
Deportation orders, which permanently prohibit return unless special authorisation is granted.
The Canadian government says the intensified deportations are aimed at tightening immigration targets and addressing concerns over housing shortages, labour market pressures, and border security. It allocated an additional $30.5 million over three years to strengthen removal efforts and committed $1.3 billion to border security enhancements.
President of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Aisling Bondy, has warned that deportations could increase further if Bill C-12, also known as the border bill, is passed.
“One of the clauses in that bill is that a lot of people will be permanently banned from filing a refugee claim in Canada,” Bondy said.
An analysis of the CBSA data shows that Nigeria is the only African country among the top 10 nationalities deported from Canada in 2025. Other African countries are grouped under “remaining nationals,” which accounted for 6,233 removals in the year.
The top 10 countries for deportations in 2025 are Mexico (3,972), India (2,831), Haiti (2,012), Colombia (737), Romania (672), United States (656), Venezuela (562), China (385), Nigeria (366), and Pakistan (359).
Similarly, Nigeria is the only African country listed among the top 10 in the removal-in-progress category, with 974 cases, behind India (6,515), Mexico (4,650), the United States (1,704), and China (1,430).