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Why more Kenyans are settling in America Last Updated on December 18, 2006, 12:00 am

Kenyans are flocking to the US in droves in search of opportunity, but as Dauti Kahura writes, disappointment awaits many.

The Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.
Kenya today sends more students to colleges and universities in the United States of America per year than any other African country.

The Institute for International Education (IIE) and the US State Department categorize Kenya as having the largest student population in the US followed by Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and South Africa.

Apart from Ghana, all the other countries are more populous than Kenya.

True, Kenyans have also been migrating to other countries such South Africa, Botswana, Canada, Australia and Germany. For example there are now in excess of 6,000 Kenyans in Germany.

The trend of Kenyans emigrating ‘en masse’ to America and European countries started only a decade ago. What has been the pull and push factors that have driven more and more Kenyans to the US in particular?

Economic upheavals of the 90’s

With the deterioration of the political and socio-economic situation in Kenya to almost a critical level, particularly in the 1990s, most Kenyans’ operative dictum become: "If you cannot make headway in Kenya, you can make bread-way in the United States."

To these people’s thinking, the US is the dream destination. And indeed a lot of Kenyans over the years have managed to escape a difficult situation in Kenya to pursue some dream in the US.

To a large extent, some of these dreams — never mind what it takes to achieve them — have come true for a lot of people, while to some others, the whole immigration experience to the US has been a nightmare.

Attractive immigration policies

The reason the US appears and, indeed has been the ‘dream destination’ for many in the world has partly to do with the underlying ideology behind some of America’s immigration policies.

The US immigration policies for a long time encouraged other nationals to immigrate to the US for various reasons, ranging from employment to professional training to educational opportunities.

For example, schools and hospitals are prohibited under Federal law from denying immigrant students access to a free public education.

In 1982, the US Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, said children of illegal immigrants have a constitutional right to a free public education.

On the other hand, Professor Richard Cooper, a Harvard Professor of International Economics, has suggested that one of the reasons why the US is economically stable has partly to do with tapping the immigrant labour that has over and above maintained the US workforce.

Mr Dan Larson, the Director of Government Relations for the Dallas based Texas Instruments Inc, the world’s biggest maker of chips for cellular telephones, confirms this when he states that the company "would be less competitive" without its foreign-born workers.

He further states, "Electronic engineering graduates, on whom the company depends to design and make semi-conductor chips, have been steadily declining in the US at alarming rates." To meet its needs, the company brings in workers from around the world on temporary work visas.

Images from Hollywood films

The US Embassy in Nairobi. The numbers of those seeking visas to America are always high. File Pictures
At another level, the US has successfully been able to market itself as a land of opportunity, by exporting its rich and diverse culture, through the innumerable number of television programmes that have flooded the Kenyan scene from the US and the ever-vibrant Hollywood film industry that churns out many of the movies shown in Kenya.

To the average Kenyan, there are a number of reasons that make the US the dream destination. One, the US economy supports a vibrant low-skilled job market, the best example being the fast food industry.

Two, the education system does provide for competitive scholarships from which a lot of foreign students benefit.

While the Immigration and Naturalisation Services (INS) have very strict laws about students engaging in the job market, it does allow students to work part time for as long as they have permits.

Three, some of the universities and colleges in the US are recognised worldwide as providing cutting-edge education and acquiring it is a guarantee that you would later land a plum job.

And related to this is the prestige that goes with having attended such colleges. To many Kenyans, it still elicits — sometimes misguidedly — awe that someone went to university in the US.

Fourthly, America’s democratic liberalism has provided political asylum seekers and economic exiles with a safe haven.

These are among the prominent reasons that have contributed to the building of an increasingly large Kenyan immigrant community in the US.

Effective networking

If a Diaspora is technically defined as a community that has been forced out of its original homeland, but one that continues to have a nostalgic cultural connection with its homeland, then it is arguable that a good number of Kenyan immigrants in the US are part of that Diaspora.

Kenyans have coalesced into organizations and associations with the aim of not just organising as Kenyans, but with the larger agenda of catering for the well being of their compatriots.

The Organisation of Kenyans in Kansas City (OKKC), for example, lists among its aims as organizing community activities in the collectivist ideology of harambee. The Kenya International Community (KIC) on the other hand is a network of Kenyans in foreign countries whose aim is to promote ideals of the motherland.

Alternatively, the Kenyan Association of Emergency Fund (KAEF) caters for emergency needs of Kenyans in South California. The International Kenya Overseas Community Association (IKOCA) in Seattle is a non-profit corporation that aims to collaborate with other international organisations for socio-cultural and economic well being of Kenyans.

Together with these organisations is the more recognised Kenya Community Abroad (KCA), a socio-political, non-partisan association that came to the limelight with its programme of awarding deserving Kenyan personalities the now prestigious Award of Excellence, whose most famous recipient was Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai.

Vibrant economy

To many Kenyans, the vibrant US economy provides a lucrative economic alternative,with the strong dollar allowing a not very well paid casual worker in the US appear to be earning a lot of money in Kenyan terms.

Thus, a Kenyan working as a casual labourer for 30 hours a week earning $8 an hour will end up having a monthly wage of $960. This translates to Sh76,000. This by Kenyans standards seems a phenomenon.

However, the crux of the matter is quite different. To assume this type of person is doing well is to wallow in wishful thinking if you were to consider the cost of living in the US compared to Kenya.

Plenty of menial jobs

Yet, in the US, there are more opportunities for one to get even that casual job that will provide a cheque to pay one’s bills, enough for one to ‘hang in there’.

The situation is made even more attractive when one is able to do two or even three jobs at the same time. Never mind that such people may fall within the category of the people who sometimes have to cheat their way into the labour market as illegal immigrants.

The facade that even a not-very-well-paid person working in the US seems to be making a lot of money, only helps to complete a not-so-realistic dream picture of the United States, to people back home in Kenya.

It is also true that to a large extent people caught up in the (unfortunate) web of having to do menial jobs to make ends meet in the US are reluctant to divulge any information on the prevailing dire situation they are trapped in to their friends and relatives back home.

Kenyans play hide and seek with the US authorities

Indeed as much as there is a good many Kenyans who remain legal within the US immigration law, so is there a good number of Kenyans who have survived by playing the dangerous game of hide and seek with the law.

In the INS census of the year 2000, it is reported that 13.5 million foreigners entered the United States between 1990 and 1999. Of these 5.5 million were unauthorised immigrants.

INS describes an unauthorised immigrant as a foreign born who enters the US without inspections or who violates the terms of a temporary admission into the US. For that period alone according to the INS, there were 15,000 unauthorised Kenyan immigrants.

This number does not include refugees, asylum seekers or parolees. INS defines a parolee as "an alien, appearing to be inadmissible to the inspecting officer, allowed to enter US under urgent humanitarian reasons or when the alien’s entry is determined to be of significant public benefit."

This illegality for a long time has played a crucial in detaining Kenyans unwillingly in the US, for the simple reason that, in order to stay hidden in the hide and seek game, one could not travel or even get into official transactions that would expose his identity and therefore his illegal status.

New tough rules

At the same time, such a person in such an illegal status cannot, for the same reason get legal work, since by law, all employers are supposed to provide their employees’ status to the Internal Revenue Authority when filing their tax returns.

But, as it has been reported, this is a game that will be almost impossible to play with new INS rules and regulations that require student visa holders — and their respective colleges — keep updating the INS of not just their progress in college, but also any residential movement.

Moving from one apartment to another, let alone moving from one state to another, is now a legal requirement, and flouting it could earn one a deportation.

Yet, because of the fear of falling out of status, there are a good number of Kenyans who have made a career as professional students, to safeguard their falling out of status.

Since it is possible to work part time, even when one is a student, it becomes a good tactic to maintain the student status for as long as one is able to, or until one gets a permanent job.

And this provides another trap. To be able to work part time as a student, one has to be enrolled in a college. This means that a percentage of one’s income will end up paying tuition.

This basically means that at the end of the day, with the type of job one is able to do as a student and the fact that a percentage of your income has to go towards tuition, one ends up in a catch-99 situation.

Thus, while one is able to occasionally send some money home, it becomes increasingly difficult to save enough for a return ticket to travel back home. Depending on which city one is in, with such a busy schedule — working and attending school at the same time — it becomes necessary to have a car, most of the time a second hand one, which in the US is cheap and can be cheaply maintained.

Owing to the fact that a lot of such professional students never divulge the reality of their predicaments to their friends and relatives back home, such relatives and friends are wont to think that doing wonderfully in the US.