Dr. Kazeem Bello is one of the founders of Nigeria in the Diaspora Organisation, NIDO, in the United
States (US). In this interview, Bello provides a broader understanding of the ongoing deportation of undocumented immigrants by President Donald Trump, situating the place of undocumented Nigerians in the issue. Bello, who speaks in his personal capacity, explains why immigration is a big issue under Trump.
Bello is a Financial Manager, Private Equity Expert, Risk Manager, Banker, and Developmental Economist. He Practiced Banking in Nigeria and rose to become Executive Vice President, Global Consumer Group Citi Bank Group New York, USA. Currently, he is the CEO of Afrique Capital & Equity Funds Ltd based in New York, USA and Afrique Capital Advisors Abuja, Nigeria.
He is Global Financial Analysts and Developmental Analyst. He is serving Directors of several corporations in Nigeria, USA, UAE and China. Excerts of interview:
We have heard and seen so much about the ongoing deportations by President Trump in America, has it in any way affected Nigerians living in the US?
Every sovereign country has its own immigration and customs policies. These policies are further defined and driven by the ideological preferences of the ruling government. What President Trump is implementing as his administration’s immigration policy is generally a legitimate mandate as ordered by the executive arm of government. President Trump is simply executing orders and mandates given to him as President by the laws and constitution of the USA.
How every President attempts to go about implementing these mandates may be tasteful to some people or distasteful to other people. Immigration policy implementation, therefore, unequivocally affects immigrants, especially those that are not properly documented in that country.
Immigration policy implementation does not generally discriminate except where political undertone is involved between two nations.
The Immigration policies of Mr Trump will definitely affect all immigrants, essentially the immigrants that are undocumented in the US. To this extent, Nigerians will be affected to some extent with the dragnet of deportation of undocumented immigrants under President Trump.
We really do not know the numbers of undocumented Nigerians living in the US, but a significant number of them have been advised to avoid moving around public domain to avoid the current wave of inordinate arrests of the so-called undocumented immigrants. They have been advised to avoid airports, major bus and train stations and going to work if they are working as an undocumented employee.
The general notion is that, the spate of the current arrests may wind down and be terminated altogether within a couple of weeks from now. To this extent, some Nigerians will obviously be affected just like it is affecting citizens of other countries.
Can we know what the deportations are really about?
Deportation of all forms for terriosium suspects to illegal and undocumented immigrants in the US is generally not a new thing. Immigration policy implementation is a regular administrative issue that goes on 24/7. Immigrants both documented and undocumented have faced legal trial and deportation for years under every government in the US. It is a regular or normal business activity conducted by the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The department carries out immigration enforcement on a daily basis with a number of deportations involved.
The fact of the matter is that President Trump has always used immigration and border projections as a major issue to woo American voters, especially those that are loyal to his MAGA indoctrination strategy. The point is that it has worked for him twice to win the presidency. To this extent, he must, as a matter of expediency, demonstrate to his teeming supporters that he actually means business and shall keep to his campaign promises, hence the need for him to create so much attention around immigration subject perhaps that will help solve the problems permanently for the US government.
To put this point in perspective, records emanating from the government sources have indicated that President Barack Obama actually deported a larger number of illegal and undocumented immigrants from
the US than any past President of the United States including Mr Trump. President Biden equally launched a series of clamp down on illegal immigrants during the past four years targeting those immigrants for immediate trial and deportation. This was a strategy that the Biden White House called a “deterrent policy,” meaning that the larger the number of undocumented immigrants deported, the more any prospective immigrant will be discouraged to embark on the risky journey with a potential to land an arrest and deportation.
The Immigration Department in the US under every government is always very busy with issues of arrest, trial and deportation. What appears to be the difference with Mr Trump policy is that, the due process of arresting, prosecuting, decisioning and eventually deportation is being skipped. At the moment, sporadic arrests are being conducted with outright deportation without following the due process. This is why many in the US see the current wave of arrest and deportation as an unusual departure of the regular operations of the ICE.
It is obvious that the current process may be weakened by the enforcement of rule of law by civil attorneys, especially in the Democrat dominated states to slow down the arrests and assist affected people access their fundamental right of defense. In some cases, such undocumented immigrants may have a credible case such as being a political fugitive from their native country or fleeing due to war or human rights abuses. There are different cases and scenarios involved in immigration issues and this is why the system has created a process to determine arrest, trial and deportation when necessary.
Are there nationalities it targets or is it truly about anyone who is not documented?
It is not known if the instructions given to ICE are constructed around the massive arrest of certain country’s citizens or if it is a blanket implementation of immigration enforcement by the Trump administration. We know obviously that South American citizens are the biggest target due to the share size of their numbers in the USA. We have not heard of any incident relating to discriminative implementation of the policy.
That would actually delegitimize the central objectives and render the exercise open for legal challenges across the board. I do not think that the Trump administration will be involved in discriminative or targeted implementation of the immigration policies. We must remember that countries such as Canada equally have serious immigration challenges with the USA, can we then consider clamping down on Canadians for immigration offences as discriminatory?
In the US, the target of illegal immigrants arrest has always been focused on those suspected to be linked to innuendo crimes such as drug trafficking, potential terrorist activities, gangsters and so on. There are also those known to have severely floated immigration barriers that the ICE sees as a dangerous trend. These categories of people are marked out and instantly affected and processed for deportation.
In the recent past, the cases of deportations involving Nigerians have been largely arrest and deportation for criminal offences such as committing financial crimes, or frauds, cyber crimes, drug trafficking and or generally a crime-related offence. Most Nigerians arrested by ICE for reasons not related to the above are able to secure help from the Nigerian communities to bail them out of the immigration palaver. The USA Immigration Department is adequately equipped to assist immigrants facing deportation challenges. There
are tools and resources openly available for anyone to seek, mostly for non-criminal offences
As it relates to Nigeria, have there been reports of Nigerians who have been raided this period and are being processed for deportations?
There have been reports of Nigerians being deported by ICE but it may not necessarily be connected to the current arrests and deportation. Most cases may be already pending cases of past arrest awaiting case determination. What we do not know is how many Nigerians may have been affected by the current spate of arrest across the country. But it is possible that some Nigerians may have been arrested at the moment with the ongoing exercise.
Can you put a figure to the number of Nigerians who may be presumably undocumented?
I have no such record. I am not certain that the government sources will be able to provide that number equally. The US is a big and complex place with ICE detentions spread across the country. To get that number will be administratively challenging.
For context, who is an undocumented immigrant, especially under the Trump administration?
There are several ways to secure legal status in the US. By visiting the US immigration website, there are over 60 ways and means to achieve legal status in the US. By definition of documented immigrants, it simply means those persons that may have legally entered the US by any of those 60 plus immigration documentation, including visiting visas, but may have allowed such legal status approval to expire without renewal or extension. Such a person will automatically become an illegal undocumented immigrant henceforth.
Second, there are those that actually entered the country through land borders with absolutely no application or any form of request to the Immigration. These are citizens of countries whose land shares borders with the USA and literally entered the US illegally with no prior documentation of any form.
This is generally how to determine or qualify legal status in the US.
How is the Nigerian community working to ensure that Nigerians are not deeply affected in the ongoing raids by the US agents, enforcing President Trump’s order?
Every community, not necessarily Nigerians alone, are getting legal help from volunteers who are immigration attorneys helping several people. There are also several NGOs that have constituted a formidable force to assist any affected immigrant on a case-by -case basis.
I am aware that Nigerians use our different communities and places of worship to provide information to
Nigerians who may have been unfortunate to get arrested. Information as to their legal right to secure an attorney to represent them before the immigration courts and other important steps to take when confronted with this problem are being disseminated as we speak.
It was reported that the Obama and Biden administrations had deported thousands of people without the kind of drama and attention being generated by Trump. What do you think the Trump version is generating noise globally?
Well I have addressed this question above. It is not necessarily a noise making issue, but somehow, an attempt to keep to promises made by Mr Trump to his base in terms of campaign promises. Again, immigration arrest prosecution and deportation is a common daily operational lifestyle of ICE under every single American President. It is a big political and governance issue in the US, hence there will always be fuses generated on immigration issues even beyond President Trump’s tenure in office. We cannot call it noise making, rather it is a common occurrence, it’s just how each government in the US handles it.
Every president or administration has its own strategies of implementing the immigration policies or rules. So, President Trump understands that for it to be effective, it is expedient for him to adopt that strategy.
America is a country built by the sweat and toils of immigrants who through the ages have contributed to the
famed American Dream.
Don’t you think what Trump is doing and the manner he goes about it are contrary to the ethos to which the country subscribes?
Definitely, immigrants have helped build America through the ages. Immigrants still hold important contributions to building the country. We have to go back and read the history of the USA. Almost every community or group that populated the USA were at some point in time immigrants in the US before becoming citizens. Everybody actually migrated to the US from somewhere. It is therefore the most multicultural and multi -ethnic settlement on the planet and it shall remain so for a considerable number of years to come.
Despite the interpretation being given to the clamp down on undocumented immigrants, the US is still the largest country on the planet that welcomes immigrants to settle and partake in the American Dream. It is also granting approvals to a considerable number of immigrants. What the Trump administration is implementing is a campaign promise, which is backed by the constitution and US laws.
However, this should not be misconstrued as a reason to permit all forms of undocumented people to flood into the country. Again, it is the responsibility of every sovereign nation to create, operate and maintain immigration policies and strategies to attract, permit and approve immigrants’ settlement to its benefits and advantages, but no country on the planet will allow uncontrollable influx of illegal or undocumented citizens into their country. Just take a research on the shared numbers of Nigerian professional medical doctors
practicing in the US and the great number of excellent achievements they are recording. This is the same for all countries where its citizens seek to migrate to the US and be part of the American Dream. These folks do not have any single problem with Mr Trump or any administration whatsoever.
Mr Trump has a mandate as president and he is simply implementing those mandates just by the ways and methods he understands that will work to produce desired results to check the influx of illegal immigrants.
What Mr Trump administration is doing by clamping down on illegal immigrants is a normal procedural mandate or powers conferred on the president. We must therefore allow him to conduct that mandate accordingly, but what the other side disagrees with is that due process, as established by law, is being downgraded or trampled upon by the activities of the ICE, not necessarily by Mr Trump.
Undocumented immigrants have been described as criminals and responsible for many crimes in America by Trump. Do Nigerian immigrants fall under this category?
Crimes in America are perpetrated by all and sundries with the levity to commit crime. Immigrants are not criminals and Mr Trump never said immigrants are criminals. Please take some time to study the trend, those that are undocumented or illegally staying in the US have committed more crimes and involved in drugs than documented people.
This is precisely the difference in what Mr Trump is talking about. Anyone can be involved in any nature of crime not necessarily because the person is an immigrant. Committing crimes is generally a human nature with instinct to commit crime. Nigerians of course have our own share of committing crimes in the US ranging from drug trafficking and lately to financial and cyber crimes.
We have US citizens equally committing worse crimes than some of these so-called illegal immigrants. Mr Trump never said documented immigrants are criminals, so Nigerians that are documented and legally staying in the USA are not criminals. This criminal description is generally known and related to drug and human trafficking mafias and so on.
Beyond what people think they know in Africa about the Trump deportations, can we have other perspectives and insights?
Every President wants to be known and remembered for posting a positive image of success during his or her tenure. This is simply what is driving and motivating Mr Trump. He wants to be remembered as that US President who successfully tackled the age-long border issues in America, especially at the Southern border posts of the US. This is why he campaigned vigorously on this issue and the reason he wants to build a wall to stop the influx of people from the borders.
