Canada rejects 70.7% of Nigerian asylum seekers who crossed borders

The acceptance rate of Nigerians seeking asylum in Canada is generally one of the lowest, and it's even lower for border crossers.

70.7% of Nigerians who illegally crossed borders into Canada to apply for asylum have been rejected by the North American country in 2018.

A recent Reuters report revealed that about 56% of refugee claims finalised between January and September 2018 were accepted, but the acceptance rates are lower for border-crossers, with Nigerians and Haitians forming the largest groups.

Nigerians make up a sizeable majority of thousands of people who have walked into Canada from the United States to file refugee claims since January 2017.

The acceptance rate of Nigerian border crossers stands at 29.3% as 9,898 Nigerians illegally walked into Canada, without going through a designated port of entry, between February 2017 and June 2018, according to data observed by Pulse from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

 

Generally, CBC News reported in February that Nigeria surpassed China as the country with the most refugee claim decisions in Canada in 2017. Many of the claims relate to sexual orientation and gender persecution, most notably domestic violence claims from women as well as the practice of female genital mutilation.

Canada cracks down on border crossers with strict measures

The trend of illegal border crossers from Nigeria worried the Canadian government so much that two officials were sent to Lagos earlier this year to work directly with their counterparts in the U.S. visa office to collaborate on how to lower the number of migrants who eventually end up making asylum claims in Canada.

This was because many of the Nigerian border crossers were observed to have arrived in Canada bearing valid U.S. visas after having spent very little time in the States.

Between June 2017 and May 2018, Canadian authorities intercepted more than 7,600 Nigerian asylum seekers with 81% of them having valid U.S. non-immigrant visas in their possession.