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| Mr Robert Simiyu with his wife Lucy in Houston, Texas. |
It
is a particularly beautiful Sunday evening in the lush suburbs of
Houston, Texas, as small groups of Kenyan families arrive in their posh
cars at one of their compatriot’s home for an evening out.
Ordinarily,
such meetings, which are regular fixtures, would just be for sharing an
evening together and catching up. But the gathering on this particular
Sunday has greater significance.
The previous evening,
some members of this group had hosted one of the most successful and
well-attended meetings in recent memory: the first annual Mashujaa
Awards ceremony.
The event was held a day before the
October 20 Mashujaa Day fete in Kenya and the US-based Kenyans are
meeting to toast to the success.
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Mr Robert Simiyu having dinner with
his wife Lucy in Houston, Texas.
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“The Mashujaa meeting was one of a kind. We
have never seen such a large crowd here in Houston, Texas. I’m proud to
have been part of a team that made that happen,” Mr Simiyu told
Lifestyle.
He is a Kenyan living the American dream.
And he owes all that to the game of chance known as the Green Card
lottery or the Diversity Visa Programme.
“Yeah, the Green Card works man, and it has worked for me. I have no regrets for having played the lottery,” he says.
Since
1992 when he graduated from the University of Nairobi with a Bachelor
of Arts degree, Mr Simiyu wanted to further his studies in the US. The
chance came in 2000 when he won the Green Card lottery.
“I
had a job in Kenya after graduation but my dream was always to come to
the US, especially to pursue further studies,” he says.
A
father of three boys and a girl, Mr Simiyu remembers how expensive it
was when it came to processing the Green Card for five people.
“It
can be a slippery slope for somebody to process the Green Card,
especially if it is a family of more than two. That is why many families
prefer one partner, mostly the husband, to come over first as an
advance party to prepare the ground for the rest to join later,” he
says.
HAPPY ABOUT HIS JOB
Thirteen
years later, Mr Simiyu is happy in his job as a Licensed Vocational
Nurse/Home Health Nurse (an equivalent of a medical doctor in Kenya) at
Regency Home Health. His wife is a hospice nurse while their children
have excelled in school.
“If you set clear goals and
focus on them, the sky is the limit. If you work hard in school, for
instance, you will get scholarships. If you hold many jobs and put in
more hours, you will get money and, therefore, get rich. It’s your bed;
you play a part in making it,” he says.
While Mr Simiyu
is living the American dream, the same can’t be said for Ms Sarah
Kimani (name changed to protect identity) a resident of Ridley Park,
Pennsylvania.
This writer met her last Monday morning
after she got back home from a double shift as a nursing assistant. Ms
Kimani, originally from Thika, is so tired and exhausted that we have to
reschedule the interview.
All she wants, as she kicks off her shoes, is to go bed and sleep.
Ms Kimani’s family moved to the US on a Green Card in 2003 and it wasn’t long before things started falling apart.
“In
Kenya, my husband was a lecturer and I was a primary school teacher. We
were not rich but we had enough to sustain our family of four — and we
were happy,” she says when we finally settle for the interview.
“If I knew what I know now, I’d not have played that lottery thing”.
Her
story is all too familiar within families that immigrated to the US
without first finding out about what to expect upon arrival.
“Even
though he had a PhD from the University of Nairobi, the only job my
husband could get when we got here was either as a watchman (security
guard) or in a nursing home. He did some of these jobs and he hated them
with a passion. Before long, he started drinking heavily and became
violent,” she says with tears welling in her eyes.
ACCUSED OF HAVING AN AFFAIR
Ms
Kimani says that one day, after they had been in the US for only four
months, her husband came home accusing her of having an affair at work
and beat her so badly that the neighbours had to call 911 (emergency
services).
“They took him away and detained him for
three days. When they interviewed the children, they said he always
behaved like that when he came home.
They added that he
was always drunk so the police gave him a restraining order and ordered
him to stay away from us and only visit over the weekend during the
day,” she says.
Things have never been the same again since then. Indeed, her husband became even more bitter and disillusioned.
“In
2006, he was arrested for drunk driving and he was given a court date.
He bought a one way air ticket to Kenya and we hardly hear of him
since,” she says.
This meant Ms Kimani was left with
the responsibility of raising three boys aged 15, 12 and seven, alone.
To make ends meet, she has to take two full-time jobs.
“It
is tough. It’s even tougher to the boys because they don’t understand
what happened to us as a family. I’m hardly at home to supervise their
homework and they are always complaining how nice it was when we were
still at home in Kenya. That is what the Green Card has done for us,”
she says.
The scramble for the Green Card is on and
this time the interest seems to be so intense that Kenya’s Foreign
Affairs ministry has been forced to warn those who apply for the Green
Card that there is no guarantee of winning.
And it is
not only successful applicants like Ms Kimani who are of concern. In an
unusual step, Foreign Affairs Political and Diplomatic Secretary Robert
Ngesu says that many Kenyans are getting into “both mental and financial
distress” after failing to win the lottery for the Green Card, which
allows one to be a permanent US resident.
“Granting of a
visa is a prerogative of the receiving state and the government (of
Kenya) cannot compel such a state to grant a visa or refund the monies
paid if the visa is not granted,” he says.
Mr Ngesu
explains that many Kenyans have in the past been contacting his office
for help after “incurring heavy expenses” on non-refundable visa and
medical examination fees.
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Regina Njogu, a Kenyan US based
immigration lawyer
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However,
it is thought many Kenyans are rushing to beat the one-month window
during which one is allowed to apply between October 1 and November 1.
This
could be the last chance for anybody to move to the US on a Green Card
as US lawmakers are considering an immigration law to abolish the
programme.
An official of the US embassy in Nairobi
told Lifestyle that the status of the Diversity Visa programme in any
final legislation is not yet known as the US Congress has not passed a
Bill in the current session that would affect the programme.
If
congress passes the law, it will be a blow to thousands of people who
dream of a better life in America. Africa has been a major beneficiary
since the programme started with at least 5,000 Kenyans thought to
qualify annually.
AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS
The diversity programme makes 55,000 visas available every year to countries with low immigration rates to the US.
Those awarded the visas are chosen by a lottery, with about half typically going to African immigrants.
Republican
lawmakers have in the past targeted the programme for elimination,
arguing that the lottery system can lead to fraud and undermine national
security.
The Green Card may be replaced by a
competitive “merit-based” visa programme, which awards visas based on a
point system that measures education and employment, among other
criteria.
“This would pit us (Kenyans) against the rest
of the world in terms of competitiveness. We will be competing with
other advanced economies and preference will be for those with PhDs and
masters, particularly those who have lived here in America and those
immigrants who have their masters and PhDs from American universities,”
says Regina Njogu, a US-based Kenyan immigration lawyer.
Ms
Njogu says that, if approved, the new merit-based visa will not be in
effect until after five years of the Bill being passed into law.
However, the Green Card lottery is likely to be eliminated starting next
year, depending on the decision of Congress.
“We are at a disadvantage since there won’t be favourable means for continued immigration from Africa,” she says.
CHEAP LABOUR
But the million-dollar question remains: has the Green card programme been good for Kenya in particular and Africa in general?
“This
is part of the grand old scheme by the US government to acquire cheap
skilled labour from underdeveloped or developing countries.
This
so-called lottery programme is nothing but modern day slavery without
chains,” says Prof Mark Rogers of Neumann University in West Chester,
Pennsylvania.
The costs of processing the lottery visa
are also considered high, with medical examination rates alone estimated
to be at least Sh24,000. This, however, may go up depending on the
tests one is expected to undergo.
The green card visa
fee is $330 (Sh28,380) while United States Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS) immigrant fee is $165 (Sh13,860). Since February 1,
2013, all individuals issued immigrant visas overseas have to pay the
USCIS immigrant fee before travelling to the US.
The US
embassy in Nairobi says the “medical exam fees is generally about
Sh20,000, but can fluctuate based on medical condition, required
vaccinations for immigration to the US, and other exam factors.
“Considering
that one is never assisted in any other way other than to be given a
mere permit to live and work in America, these costs are very high. Many
people have sold everything they own, including pieces of land, only to
come here (US) and realise it’s completely different from what they had
expected,” said Mr Johnson Kinyua, a resident of Houston, Texas.
LAND OF DREAMS
Cases
of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and suicides among Kenyans
living abroad have exposed the myth that all is rosy in the land of
dreams.
“It takes very long to adjust to life in the
US. Men especially find it very hard to adjust to the changing gender
roles at home and doing jobs considered to be of less prestige,” says
Jane Rurigi, adding that these are usually the key causes of
separations.
However, there have also been numerous success stories.
However, there have also been numerous success stories.
“There
is no limit to the horizons one can set for oneself because America is
still a place where hard work, dedication and vision can transform
dreams into reality. It can also lead to lost dreams, broken promises
and a miserable existence,” says Mr Simiyu, who, however, warns that the
dream can also easily turn into a nightmare.
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