KEY POINTS
- Trump talks on Nigerian immigrant welfare data in public.
- Data on Nigerian immigrant welfare suggests that 33.3 percent of people use it.
- Welfare numbers match stricter visa rules.
Donald Trump, the President of the United States, said that more than one in three Nigerian immigrant households in the U.S. rely on public assistance.
This has led to a campaign during the election year to link immigration levels to welfare use and national security. Trump posted the numbers on his Truth Social platform on January 4, 2026. The post included a chart that showed the rates of welfare involvement among immigrant households broken down by nation of origin. The data shows that nearly one-third of Nigerian immigrant households need some kind of governmental assistance, such as help with food, health care, or housing.
The chart, called “Immigrant Welfare Recipient Rates by Country of Origin,” shows data from 114 nations and territories. It has become a key part of the Republicans’ new narrative about the costs and benefits of immigration.
Data on Nigerian immigrant wellbeing starts a political argument
According to the numbers that Trump shared, Nigeria is about in the center of the list. It is considerably below countries with the most people on welfare, but above a few others with lower usage rates.
Immigrant families from Bhutan (81.4 percent), Yemen (75.2 percent), Somalia (71.9 percent), the Marshall Islands (71.4 percent), the Dominican Republic (68.1 percent), and Afghanistan (68.1 percent) all had the greatest percentages of assistance dependency. Congo, Guinea, Samoa, and Cape Verde are among high-ranking countries.
Bermuda had the lowest welfare participation rate at 25.5 percent, followed by Saudi Arabia, Israel/Palestine, Argentina, and South America as a whole. Kenya, Zambia, and Kuwait were also in the bottom ten.
Data on Nigerian immigrants’ welfare and visa restrictions overlap
The assistance numbers came out at the same time as the Trump administration’s stricter rules on immigration and travel. A presidential decree from June 2025 put full or partial travel bans on people from many countries because of the risk of terrorism, inadequate identity systems, and insufficient cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.
In December 2025, the White House added 39 more countries to the list and prolonged the ban beyond 2026. Nigeria was included in the “partial restriction” group, which means that it is harder to get immigrant visas and some non-immigrant visas, such as student and exchange visas.
In July 2025, the government also made it harder for Nigerians to get visas. Most non-immigrant visas were changed from multi-year choices to single-entry permits that were only good for three months. Officials stated that the adjustments made travel rules around the world more in line with higher security standards.
More generally, U.S. authorities canceled about 85,000 visas in 2025. This is because of stricter scrutiny and enforcement measures, as immigration policy is still a hot topic in U.S. politics.
