United States President, Joe Biden, signed a number of executive orders by this means lifting the immigrant visa ban placed on Nigerians by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Biden also reversed the systemic ban placed on citizens from Muslim dominated countries like Yemen.
Donald Trump, last February placed an immigrant visa ban on Nigeria, mentioning Nigeria’s lack of a robust database. The American Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary-Beth Leonard, stated at the time that Nigeria must improve on its data intelligence to ease the investigation of its citizens wishing to migrate to the US, if it wants the ban lifted.
The Nigerian government then set up a committee on Citizen Data Management and Harmonisation, to address the criticisms of the US which led to the recent push for all Nigerians to register with the National Identity Management Commission and obtain a National Identity Number.
With Biden’s reversal of Trump’s order, Nigerians will now be able to apply for green cards.
The Bloomberg report reads in part, “The ban that Biden ended, blocked entry to most people from Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and North Korea. It also restricted immigrant visas for people from Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, and Eritrea as well as for certain others from Venezuela and Tanzania.”
