DONALD Trump, President of the United States (US) has announced plans to suspend immigration into the US, in a bid to protect ‘American jobs’ as the effect of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic takes its toll globally.

Trump shared his plan in a tweet shared on his official Twitter page on Monday, leaving out details of measures that would be taken to effect the immigration suspension plan.

“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!,” his tweet reads.

At the moment, the US has taken the worst hit of COVID-19 cases in the world, with over 790,000 confirmed cases and over 42,000 deaths, according to Worldometer.

Despite worrying indices of COVID-19 in the US, an overwhelmed health care system and struggling economy, Trump’s proposed approach to getting the country back on its feet is to suspend immigration.

A move that would completely shut down the legal immigration system and see to the denial of applications of foreigners who desire to live and work in the US for an unspecified period of time.

Since becoming President, Trump has consistently advocated for and against closing the borders and illegal immigration, all of which have earned him criticisms from many Americans.

In fact, in the last three years, there’s been a decline in the number of visas issued to foreigners abroad looking to immigrate to the US to about 25 percent. Exactly 462,422 in the 2019 fiscal year, from 617,752 in 2016, NYT reports.

While Trump’s immigration suspension plan comes as a rude awakening to many foreigners hoping to relocate legally to the US, for Nigerians; it is no news.

In January, Trump included Nigeria in a list of six African countries facing stringent travel restrictions to the US.

As such, Immigrant visas issued to those seeking to live in the US will be banned for Nigeria.

A presidential proclamation on January 31 cited Nigeria’s failure to comply with security and information sharing requirements, and its high “terror” risk to the US as reasons for imposing the restriction.

Other African countries on the list include; Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan.