Business
African immigrants leaving the US: head home to start businesses
Sammy Maina says the ten years he spent in the US would have been more profitable at home in Africa (Courtesy: BBC)
The American dream is not all it is cut out to be and some Africans are turning their backs on life in the US.
In 1980, immigrant entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa came to the United States and stayed, starting two companies that created more than 1,000 American jobs. Now an academic, Wadhwa sees first hand that today’s immigrants are not following his lead.
Every year he asks foreign students in his classes at Duke University how many intend to stay permanently in the United States. “It used to be that everyone raised their hand,” Wadhwa says. “Now they look at you funny. They say, ‘What does that mean?’”
For a majority of highly skilled immigrants who want to start companies, the promised land is no longer the United States, writes Wadhwa and four co-authors in a recent report from the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo based non-profit that supports research on entrepreneurship.
There are an estimated one million Africans in the US.
According to the homeland security department, 130,000 Africans migrate legally to the US each year.
It is impossible to say how many returnees there are, as the evidence is anecdotal but representatives of African community associations in New York, Atlanta and Boston all say they know of large numbers of expatriates making plans to leave the US.
The reason: they cannot find jobs and have become desperate about their future here.
Frustrated by tough economic times in the United States, Sammy Maina is packed, ready and waiting to return to Kenya.
