Keep your America, Mr Trump, and we'll keep our Africa

Al Jazeera

7 hours ago

On June 16, The New York Times disclosed that United States President Donald Trump is considering broadening his travel ban list to include as many as 36 additional countries, most of them African – including my country, Zimbabwe.
Twelve days earlier, Trump had enacted a proclamation barring citizens from 12 nations from entering the US. Seven of them – Chad, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan – are African.
He also imposed partial travel restrictions, rather than a complete ban, on individuals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Citizens from these nations are barred from permanently relocating to the US or obtaining tourist or student visas.
As promised on the campaign trail, Trump is cracking down on immigration.
For the first time in my life, I now face the extraordinary prospect of being barred from travelling to the US – a nation that several of my family members and friends call home.
My cousin, Dr Anna Mhaka, for example, completed her medical studies and practised exclusively in the US. Spencer Matare, a former classmate, has lived in Indianapolis for more than two decades and is a US citizen.
Despite the Trump administration's political grandstanding and vilification of migrants – both legal and undocumented – Anna and Spencer, like millions of others, are industrious, law-abiding members of US society.
I know many in Africa hope to follow in their footsteps, and are deeply alarmed by the growing barriers to migration that Trump has erected.
Yet, I am not one of them.
Since graduating from the University of Cape Town in 1997, I have never felt inclined to travel to America – let alone live there.
I recognise that this makes me something of an anomaly.
I come from a time and place where the West was idealised – romanticised through the assimilated lens of an Anglicised upbringing. That longing was all around me, not just in my community but across the African continent, shaped by the enduring legacies of French, Portuguese, Spanish and British colonial rule. Yet it was never mine.
On International Migrants Day – December 18, 2024 – Afrobarometer released a report based on data from 24 African countries. It found that 49 percent of Africans had considered emigrating, with North America and Europe the top destinations – though a significant number preferred relocation within Africa.
Nearly 49 percent cited the search for better work opportunities as their reason for wanting to emigrate; 29 percent pointed to poverty and economic hardship.
Many Africans still believe in the 'American dream' – or its European equivalent – and I do not begrudge them. Across the US, Africans have found success in business, academia, and sport. The late NBA star Dikembe Mutombo, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is a case in point.
During his lifetime, Mutombo donated $15m of his wealth to establish the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital in Kinshasa – a $29m medical and research centre built in memory of his mother, who died in 1997 after failing to receive timely care.
Her tragic, though common, story reflects the deep-rooted socioeconomic challenges across Africa – the very conditions that continue to drive emigration: Broken healthcare systems, entrenched corruption, unemployment, poverty. In contrast, the US often appears as a refuge.
A January 2022 report by the Pew Research Center on Black immigrants in the US showed that African-born Black immigrants are among the most recent arrivals: Three-quarters came in 2000 or later, with 43 percent arriving between 2010 and 2019.
Though the Caribbean remains the top source region, Africa has spurred much of the recent growth. Between 2000 and 2019, the number of Black African immigrants rose by 246 percent – from about 600,000 to two million. Today, individuals of African descent account for 42 percent of the US's foreign-born Black population – up from 23 percent in 2000.
When I first heard of Trump's proposed visa bans, I felt profound disdain. It was impossible not to recall his infamous 'shithole countries' comment from January 11, 2018 – another act of racial profiling aimed at African nations.
But, on reflection, I have come to see his divisive, insular policies in a different light.
On January 20, he froze US aid to Africa.
Now, he is close to denying many of us visas – from Burkina Faso to Cameroon and Ivory Coast.
Unwittingly, Trump is nudging African nations towards greater self-reliance – forcing us to confront the unmet needs of our restless populations.
But he is not alone in 'anti-African' politicking.
Anti-immigration rhetoric has hardened across the US political spectrum. For Africans, even securing a student visa has become harder. In 2023, sub-Saharan African countries had the highest US visa refusal rates – averaging 57 percent. Excluding Southern Africa, where rejection sits at about 19 percent, the rate across other regions rises to 61 percent.
These declining approvals do not affect me, as I have no desire to visit or settle in the United States.
My reluctance to set foot in the so-called 'land of the free' stems from a deep-seated fear: The fear of becoming yet another victim of American police brutality – as the world witnessed with the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020. I know that Black people – African or otherwise – are far too often subjected to racism, violence and discrimination in the US, regardless of their immigration status.
But racially charged police brutality is not the only reason I choose to stay away. There are many more reasons for an African never to consider settling there.
Many Americans struggle with the same, deep-rooted problems facing Africans across the continent. Roughly 29 million adults in the US struggle to access affordable healthcare, according to the West Health-Gallup healthcare indices – a challenge as familiar in Kinshasa as it is in many parts of America. In 2023, the US Census Bureau reported that 36.8 million Americans were living in poverty.
Despite the glossy illusion projected by Hollywood, the US is no utopia.
While people like Anna and Spencer have succeeded there, for most Africans there is no path to achieving the 'American dream'. They must find their futures within their own countries or in other parts of Africa.
A huge transformation is needed.
China, after all, achieved sweeping economic reform in just 40 years.
With Africa's vast mineral wealth and its young, educated population, similar change is possible. A focus on domestic processing of raw materials could drive industrial growth, job creation, and higher gross domestic product.
But peace and good governance must come first. And our investment priorities must change. Rather than pouring money into defence and security, African governments should focus on artificial intelligence, healthcare, and scientific research.
As Africans, we must stop defining ourselves through Western aid, validation, or instruction.
Whatever comes, I will remain in the motherland.
Keep your America, Mr Trump – and we will keep our Africa.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.