Post falsely claims Trump’s deportation order does not affect Nigerians

“I congratulate all Nigerians in the US,” reads the caption of an X post published on January 27, 2025, and shared more than 300 times.

Image

Screenshot showing the false claim, taken February 5, 2025

The post includes a chart titled “Final Removal Cases - ICE US (Trump Deportation List)”.

The infographic suggests that Trump's deportation order affects only 10 named countries, led by Ghana with 6,200 deportations, followed by Egypt (5,400) and then Romania (4,700).

The post was published by an account called “Ayekooto”, which regularly shares positive content about Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) with its 365,000 followers.

A day before the claim was posted on X, Ghana-based accounts shared the same infographic on Facebook (including here and here), while a local blog published it as a news story.

The claim also circulated on Instagram.

However, the claim is false.

Trump 2.0

Trump made a historic comeback when he was sworn in as the 47th US president on January 20, 2025 (archived here).

His return to power has heightened concerns about his “America First” agenda, which could result in a reduction in aid and support for health programmes, including those in Africa (archived here).

By February 4, 2025, Trump signed  53 executive orders, ranging from declaring a national emergency at the southern border to reinstating the federal death penalty, as well as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization (archived here).

Africa’s second-highest

Among the orders Trump signed on his first day in office was the “Securing our Border” policy, which aims to expel illegal immigrants from the US.

According to a document exclusively obtained by Fox News from ICE, 1,445,549 foreign nationals were on the immigration agency’s “non-detained docket” with final orders of removal as of November 24, 2024 (archived here). 

Contacted by AFP Fact Check, ICE confirmed on February 4, 2025, that the document had originated from its system and that the content was correct.

Somalia had the highest figure of illegal African immigrants on the list, with 4,090 nationals followed by 3,690 Nigerians. This placed Nigeria as the second-highest country in Africa.

Ghana held the third spot with 3,228 illegal immigrants. 

Globally, Mexico had the highest number of persons earmarked for deportation, with 252,044.