Nigerians will benefit form Obama's immigration reform - Ambassador

Category: News Published on Wednesday, 20 February 2013 15:54

Nigerians illegally residing in the United States of America (USA) stand to benefit a lot from the Immigration reforms of the USA President, Barrack Obama.

The Nigerian Ambassador to the USA, Professor Ade Adefuye said this while speaking with Daily Trust at Minister of Interior's Office in Abuja on Tuesday.

He pointed out that when the Immigration reform sees the light of day, those Nigerians who went to the USA to study and finally got good jobs afterwards and doesn't have complete papers will be granted citizenship.

"You know there are millions of Nigerians in the US. Some of them have found themselves there for quite a while and they are not properly registered."

President Barrack Obama has proposed that those who came to the USA and are living illegally but have been contributing to the development of the country should be properly registered.

"A student who go there to study, finishes his degree, gets a good job, he is doing well but his papers are not complete...what Obama is saying is that they should be given an opportunity to stay and continue contributing to the development of the country."

The Diplomat said since Nigeria and the United States of America both approves double citizenship, Nigerians in the US will be contributing to the economy of both countries.

He noted that Nigeria was looking forward to the success of the policy because of the benefits Nigerians living in the USA will get from its implementation.

Not broke

He denied the insinuation that the Nigerian Embassy in the USA was broke as rumoured in some quarters.

"You know too well that the budget is not signed but we are still fulfilling our responsibilities. As anybody told you he has not been paid his salary? We are fine."

"We will do better with more money. The budget will soon be signed and we will be fine."

Partnership

On his reasons for visiting the Ministry, he said the Ministry of Interior and the Embassy works together as it has a department that deal with immigration issues at the embassy.

"We have their staff in my embassy. So, matters concerning their welfare, their promotion, their discipline, funding and so, were what we discussed. We are part of the same government though, they work for the Interior part of the Embassy of Nigeria, Washington."

He said all he came for was to fashion an improved relationship between the two government departments.