Africans Deserve a Better U.S. Immigration Policy
The migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border is the effect of the United States not having a functional immigration policy for decades. However, most of the faces you see in the media are people coming from Central and South America. Rarely is it talked about or do we see the faces of African migrants seeking asylum in this country. While it is true most African migrants go towards Europe, ask anyone in this country who is Nigerian, Sudanese, Liberian or from any other African nation what the process is like for them and you will get the same answers as those from Central and South America. The current U.S. immigration is cumbersome, racist and ineffective. The system is going to collapse on itself and then the nation is really going to be hurting.
A memoir written by Maudlyne Ihejirika in 2016 tells of the harrowing journey her mother Angelina Ihejirka took to escape civil war in Nigeria and come to the United States in 1965. “Escape from Nigeria: A Memoir of Faith, Love and War,” goes into the riveting details of how the author’s mother used a combination of bribing Nigerian officials, cunning and sheer willpower to reach the United States, suffering from indignities that varied for the slightest to the boldest. Published by Africa World Press, the book gives details of what it was like trying to get to America from the other side of the ocean.
Many of the same barriers Ihejirka faced are still existing today for Africans trying to flee war zones, poverty and genocide. A member of the Igbo tribe, Ihejirka and her family were the targets of persecution by a corrupt government in Nigeria, tribal warfare and pure racism in America. However, the strength of the story of Ihejirka’s escape, as told to her daughter, is one of the most inspiring reads you will ever experience.
In 2023 Africans seeking to make America their new home still must deal with these same issues Ihejirka’s mom faced in the 1960’s. On rare occasions the perpetrators of the bigotry are Black Americans themselves, but let’s be clear here; when the former President of the United States refers to African nations as “shithole countries,” this is way bigger than the slight tensions that arise sometimes between Africans and African Americans.
The immigration laws in this country are not friendly to Africans. As a person who went to college with several people from Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and other African nations, seeing how their paperwork always seems to be “delayed,” or the troubles they face finding a U.S. business to sponsor their work visa, even after they graduated from college compared with Chinese immigrants, and you quickly understand the unfairness of it all.
“Escape from Nigeria” is an oral history of what it is like trying to come to America as an African. The similarities to those attempting the same journey in 2023 are scary, but stories like these are why it is so culturally important that we have griots like Ihejirika and independent news outlets owned and managed by Black people.
Immigration is a wide-ranging issue in which American mainstream media has ignored the plight of Africans in favor of those from Central and South America. We have seen this movie before in American history have, we not? It is illustrated by the recent images of history books, primarily about the Black experience in America, literarily being burned by politicians in a Missouri bonfire ignited by flamethrowers. Historically, book burnings are a symbol of oppression, censorship and a society breaking down, made most famous during Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler. If there are some factions in this country trying to erase the past contributions of Black people’s sacrifice and fight for rights in this country, what do you think their current mindset is to people trying to immigrate here from African nations?
While the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress has its hands full on this issue, it is time once and for all for some real solutions. I just hope people with lots of melanin in their skin don’t end up getting the short end of the stick like usual.