At least 1,372 Nigerians have been granted asylum in the United States over the last three years.
This was revealed in new case-completion data released by the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
According to reports, US judges awarded protection to 475 Nigerians in 2022, 514 in 2023, and 383 in 2024, indicating a 25% reduction between 2023 and 2024 alone.
Among the 475 in 2022 was 12-year-old Nigerian chess prodigy Tani Adewumi, whose family fled Boko Haram threats and obtained asylum in New York in late 2022 following a legal battle that began in a Manhattan homeless shelter.
Edafe Okporo, an LGBTQ activist and memoirist, was granted protection in 2024 after recording a life-threatening domestic assault.
During that time, however, at least 1,534 Nigerians failed to persuade the court of their asylum claims.
A total of 603, 666, and 265 claims were denied in 2022, 2023, and 2024, representing a 56% decrease from the 2022 rejection rate.
In 2022, Nigerian applicants received 1,534 rejections, 68 abandonments, and 552 “not adjudicated” cases, with fewer procedural closures in 2023 and 2024.
The EOIR report, published annually on the US Department of Justice’s “Asylum Decisions by Nationality” portal, lists all countries with at least a handful of cases.
Nigerians had the highest number of asylum claims in the US in 2022 and 2023.
Others are Ghana (238), Egypt (203), Eritrea (193), Uganda (86), Senegal (99) and Sudan (42). Closer observations show that African claims still account for a relatively small slice of the U.S. asylum applications, which are dominated by Latin American and Eurasian cases.
Globally, Russian nationals received the most asylum protection in 2024, with 3,605 granted, a rise that US officials ascribe to draft evasion and dissident cases spurred by the Ukraine conflict.
China received 2,998 awards as more dissidents fled the communist state, while Venezuela recorded 2,656 and Nicaragua 2,000.
US immigration judges also awarded asylum to 1,684 Salvadorans, 1,624 Hondurans, 1,592 Guatemalans, 1,007 Cubans, and 751 Mexicans.
Mexicans had the most denials (3,910), followed by China (903), El Salvador (2,880), Ecuador (2,774), and Peru (2,424).
Asylum under US law is governed by Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Anyone physically present in the United States may seek asylum if they can demonstrate a “well-founded fear” due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a certain social group.
However, criminal convictions, one-year application deadlines, and the concept of “firm resettlement” can all derail asylum cases before they reach a court. The system has two tracks: those who apply affirmatively through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and those who file a “defensive” claim after being removed.
Success is dependent on supporting documents, trustworthy evidence, and, increasingly, obtaining scarce legal help. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services first reviews “affirmative” cases; if they are denied, they are redirected to EOIR’s immigration courts, where the government’s trial attorneys can still oppose their release. According to the EOIR, “defensive” petitions emerge when migrants are already undergoing removal proceedings.
During his first term (2017-2021), President Donald Trump reviewed these conditions using policy tools such as the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as “Remain in Mexico”, and a third-country transit bar, which disqualified most applicants who travelled through another country before crossing the US border.
Although President Joe Biden partially dismantled or narrowed Trump’s rules, a new Circumvention of Lawful Pathways regulation requires many arrivals to secure an appointment through Customs and Border Protection’s One mobile app or prove they sought refuge elsewhere en route, which has been criticised for its resemblance to Trump’s playbook.
The EOIR observes that case flow and court staffing can influence outcomes from one fiscal cycle to the next. According to data from the agency’s 2024 Annual Report, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has evicted 902 Nigerian nationals since the beginning of fiscal year 2019.
