Trump Administration and the Politics of Visa Denial to Nigerian Citizens

Abstract

President Trump on January 31 st 2020 has added six countries to his list of nations facing stringent travel restrictions, a move that will virtually block immigration from Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, and from Myanmar, where the Muslim minority is fleeing genocide. Beside Nigeria, three other African countries, Eritrea, Sudan and Tanzania, will face varying degrees of restrictions, as will one former Soviet state, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar’s. All six countries have substantial Muslim populations. The total number of countries now on the restricted travel list stands at 13. Immigrant visas, issued to those seeking to live in the United States, will be banned from Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea and Kyrgyzstan. The ban will also prevent immigrants from Sudan and Tanzania from moving to the United States through the diversity visa lottery, which grants green cards to as many as 50,000 people a year. The paper would uses secondary source of data from relevant publications. The researcher was of the view that most of these countries with US Visa restriction have issues of security problems and are mainly Muslim countries. The paper was of the view that if these countries need to have respect and international recognition the government of these countries must take the issue of insecurity and fighting terrorism as a priority agenda so that they cannot be isolated as unsecured countries among countries of the world. Keywords: Immigrant, Visa, Terrorism and Insecurity. DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/97-11 Publication date: May 31 st 2020