Nigerian nationals most deported foreigners in 2023–24: home ministry

The union home ministry said in its annual report for 2023–24 said the highest number of foreigners deported from India were from Nigeria, followed by Bangladesh and Uganda.

From 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, a total of 2,331 foreigners were deported by the Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs) in Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Amritsar, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Of these, 1,470 people were from Nigeria, 411 people were from Bangladesh and 78 were from Uganda. The FRROs maintain a record of foreigners who enter India on valid documents. Deportation can result from overstaying one's visa or flouting visa conditions, among other reasons. 

During the same period, 1,112 long-term visas (LTV) were granted by the home ministry for minority communities from Pakistan. LTVs, ranging from one year to five years, are precursors to citizenship.

Since 2019, all citizenship applications have been processed online and between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024, a total of 1,699 citizenship certificates have been granted by the union and state governments.

The home ministry delegated powers to state government officials in 31 districts across nine states to grant citizenship to foreigners under the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955.

‘Out of this, 1,278 were granted by registration under Section 5 and 421 were granted by naturalisation under Section 6 of the Citizenship Act, 1955,’ the report said. The data however, does not reflect the number of citizenship certificates granted under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA).

The report stated that the CAA is a focused legislation, seeking to provide a relaxation to aforementioned communities from the specified countries with a specifed cut-off date. ‘It is a compassionate and ameliorative legislation,’ the ministry claimed.

The CAA fast-tracks citizenship for undocumented migrants of the Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan who had come to India before 31 December 2014.

Around 98 lakh foreigners visited India during the 2023–24 period under consideration, and the highest number of visitors were from Bangladesh (21,08,734), followed by the United States of America (17,37,549), the United Kingdom (9,86,954), Australia (4,72,913), Canada (4,00,417), Sri Lanka (2,85,664), Malaysia (2,80,578), Germany (2,39,271), Nepal (2,02,197) and Singapore (2,00,708).