Canada has ramped up its border enforcement, with 366 Nigerians deported between January and October 2025.
According to recent data from the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), this surge is part of a broader crackdown that has seen Nigeria return to the top 10 list of countries for enforced removals.
The latest figures reveal that Canada’s immigration enforcement drive is moving at its fastest pace in over a decade.
Beyond the deported 366 Nigerians, there are currently 974 Nigerians categorized under the “removal in progress” inventory, meaning their cases are under final review or awaiting logistics for deportation.
According to the CBSA, the primary driver behind these statistics is a backlog of failed asylum claims.
The CBSA reported that approximately 83% of all removals involve individuals whose refugee protection claims were denied by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the CBSA is legally mandated to remove foreign nationals once an enforceable removal order is issued.
The current Canada’s immigration enforcement drive targets several categories of inadmissibility, including failed Asylum Claims, non-Compliance, criminality and misrepresentation.
Criminality accounts for about four per cent of removals.
Canadian law stipulates three types of removal orders: departure orders, which require individuals to leave within 30 days; exclusion orders, which bar re-entry for one to five years; and deportation orders, which permanently bar individuals from returning unless they obtain special authorisation.
The latest statistics, updated on November 25, 2025, showed that Nigeria ranked ninth among the top 10 nationalities deported from Canada in the under review, with 974 Nigerians in the fifth position among those awaiting removal.
A breakdown of the data showed that Nigerian deportations have fluctuated over the years.
In 2019, Canada removed 339 Nigerians; this dropped to 302 in 2020, then to 242 in 2021, and to 199 in 2022.
While Nigeria did not feature in the top 10 in 2023 and 2024, it returned to the list in 2025, recording 366 removals in just 10 months.
This represented an eight per cent increase compared to the 2019 figure.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that the deported 366 Nigerians come amid Canada’s aggressive immigration crackdown, with the CBSA now removing nearly 400 foreign nationals weekly, the highest rate in over a decade.
In fiscal year 2024-2025, Canada removed 18,048 people, spending approximately $78m in the process.
The Canadian government had announced that it is intensifying deportations to tighten immigration targets and address concerns over housing shortages, labour market pressures, and border security.
It also allocated an additional $30.5m over three years to bolster removal efforts, while committing $1.3bn to enhance border security.
President of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Aisling Bondy, had expressed concern that deportations may ramp up further if Bill C-12, also known as the ‘border bill,’ passes.
“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.
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, in the removal-in-progress record, Nigeria (974) is the only African country listed in the top 10. The inventory is led by India (6,515), followed by Mexico (4,650), the United States (1,704), China (1,430), Nigeria (974), Colombia (895), Pakistan (863), Haiti (741), Brazil (650), and Chile (621).
