Be the first to get hottest news from our Editor-in-Chief SIGN UP THANK YOU! Check your email and confirm your subscription You are already subscribed to our newsletter! Check your inbox to be the first to know the hottest news Home World WORLD Visa restriction: American journalist blasts Trump, lists Nigerian immigrants’ achievements in US Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at 5:08 PM by Nurudeen Lawal – A top American journalist, Fareed Zakaria, has said that the US government’s decision to impose immigrant visa restriction on Nigerians is not about security as Trump claimed – Zakaria cited data which indicates that no Nigerian immigrant has been responsible for a single terror-related death on American soil between 1975 and 2017 – The respected journalist went on to list the enviable achievements of Nigerian immigrants in the US which, according to him, make the visa restriction unjustifiable Fareed Zakaria, a top American journalist with the CNN has analysed why the recent decision of the United States government to impose immigrant visa restriction on Nigeria “does not make sense.” The US government had justified the restriction on the basis of national security concerns, claiming that the affected countries have gaps in their security protocols surrounding travel which exposed the US to terror threats. The American journalist, however, said the “argument does not really make sense”, citing a data from CATO institute. According to the data, “No one born in Nigeria, Myanmar, Tanzania, and Eritrea have been responsible for a single terror-related death on American soil between 1975 and 2017.” Zakaria argued that if the government was truly worried about security from the countries, it would ban all visas, not just immigrant visa. He said the government’s decision to target only permanent visas, leaving the temporary visas, suggests something else is going on. According to him, when Trump unveiled the new immigration plan in 2019, he said he wants English speaking immigrants who could assimilate easily and give back to the country. Zakaria said if that is what Trump wants, Nigerian immigrants who make up the largest group of Sub-Saharan Africans in the US as of 2017 “check all those boxes”. “They are some of the most educated immigrants in America. “According to the Migration Policy Institute, 59% of Nigerian immigrants age 25 or older in the US hold at least a Bachelors degree, which is nearly doubled the proportion of the Americans born in the US (33%),” Zakaria said “Nigerian immigrants tend to work high skilled jobs, 54% are in largely white-collar positions in business, management, science and the art compared to the 39% of people born in the US,” he added. This, according to Zakaria’s analysis, means that Nigerian immigrants have significant spending power. The American journalist also cited a new report by the New American Economy which states that Nigerian immigrants in the US in 2018 made more than $14 billion and paid more than $4 billion in taxes. The report also states that Nigerian diaspora around the world sent back almost $24 billion in remittances, contributing to the Nigerian economy that is “more dynamic than many people, including Trump himself realise”. Zakaria added that Nigeria that is once thought to be just an oil economy now have services account for more than 50% of its GDP while technology is now 10%, citing data from the centre for global development. “Nigeria is America’s second-largest African trading partner,” he said. He concluded by quoting the position of John Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria, that the visa restriction amounts to policy incoherence within the Trump administration The American journalist said Trump has often stated that he does not like immigrants from brown and black countries. He also made reference to Trump’s statement in 2017 where he said Nigerian immigrants would never go back to their huts in Africa once they got to the US. Zakaria added that Trump had said he wanted more immigrants from Norway and fewer from African countries which he described as “shithole.” In a similar development, Justin Fox, a popular American journalist and Bloomberg Opinion columnist has revealed why the United States should allow more Nigerian immigrants in the country. READ ALSO REPORT: Nigerians blame U.S travel ban on Buhari rather than Trump Fox made the points in the wake of the immigrant visa restriction imposed on Nigeria by the Donald Trump-led US government. The respected journalist in his opinion published by Bloomberg on Tuesday, February 4, described the Nigerian immigrants as one of the most successfully integrated groups in the country.