Over 1,035 Gambians at Risk of Deportation After President Trump’s Presidential Order

ICE Gambian Detentions © ICE

By Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan_YT

Soon after President Trump’s inauguration for his second term on 20th January 2025, he signed a series of Presidential Orders on the same day, with one “declaring a national emergency at the southern border of the United States.”

But how does this affect Africans and Gambians in particular, one might ask? A document issued by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has revealed that there are 1,035 Gambians in the U.S. “with final orders of removal.” The document dated 24th November 2024, started going viral after President Trump’s inauguration, which sparked mass arrests of unauthorised immigrants. President Trump appears to be pursuing his campaign promise to conduct the largest mass deportation campaign in the U.S. from his first day in office.

In total, the document highlights that “there are 1,445,549 noncitizens on ICE’s non-detained docket with final orders of removal,” of which 1,689 are Senegalese, 1,563 are from Sierra Leone, and some 3,690 are from Nigeria. By far the majority of those with final orders are from Honduras with a whopping 261,651, followed by Guatemala with 253,413, and surprisingly Mexico with 252,044.

It’s important to understand what these figures mean. The document issued by ICE is a list of “noncitizens on ICE’s non-detained docket with final orders of removal.” This means that noncitizens on ICE’s detained docket with final orders of removal are not part of the list, and unauthorised immigrants without final orders of removal are also not on the list.

It’s important to note that an estimated 11.7 million unauthorised immigrants resided in the U.S. as of July 2023, according to the Center for Migration Studies.

According to the UN DESA and MSDG-Gambia, some 25,000 Gambians were resident in the U.S. as of 2020, second only to Italy with 22,000 and followed by the United Kingdom with 20,000. These numbers include authorised and unauthorised immigrants in the aforementioned countries.

But the Gambian Diaspora contributes significantly towards the country’s Gross Domestic Product with the Central Bank of the Gambia, reporting that over $775.6 million US dollars was sent back to the country in 2024. The Diaspora contributes over 31.5% of the Gross Domestic Product in the Gambian economy.

ICE Made Over 1 Million Detentions in Four Years

Our research made use of the ICE website, which provides “ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Statistics.” According to the website, “The following dashboards present for the first time information and trends in arrests, detentions, removals, and alternatives to detention as of September 30, 2024.” The data presented on the website provides statistics from 2021 to the end of October 2024 and highlights that over a four-year period:

• 68 Gambians have been arrested out of a total of 500,853 ICE arrests.

• 243 Gambians have been detained out of a total of 1,074,161 ICE detentions.

• 54 Gambians have been removed out of a total of 545,242 ICE removals.

Looking at the number of detentions made out of over a million, only 243 of them are Gambians, with the largest number, 66, made in Phoenix, followed by 44 in New Orleans and 25 in San Antonio. The ICE website indicates that the data is correct as of October 2024.

(See cover image at the top.)

Pew Research Center shows 11 million by end of 2022

Center for Migration Studies shows 11.7 million by end of July 2023 (see second image above)

Some 11.7 Million Unauthorised Immigrants in the U.S.

In the grand scheme of things, the Center for Migration Studies estimates that 11.7 million unauthorised immigrants resided in the U.S. as of July 2023. Another research paper by the Pew  Research Center estimates that 11 million unauthorised immigrants resided in the U.S. in 2022 and provides the number of unauthorised immigrant populations by region of birth.

The research paper highlights that the number of African-born unauthorised immigrants in the U.S. grew from 275,000 in 2019 to 375,000 in 2022, making it the third-smallest block of unauthorised immigrants after Oceania with 80,000 and the Middle East with 180,000. The largest block of unauthorised immigrants is from Mexico, with over 4 million people; however, this amount declined by 300,000 from 2019 to 2022.

Although it’s not clear exactly how many unauthorised immigrants are from the Gambia currently residing in the U.S., unauthorised immigrants from Africa rank amongst the lowest number of unauthorised immigrants in the U.S. In addition to this, the number of unauthorised immigrants from the Gambia amongst the African population also ranks very low.

In conclusion, the statistics from ICE and other research highlight that Africans are the least of the U.S.’s migration problems, with the Gambia ranking very low in the number of unauthorised immigrants in the U.S. from Africa.