Why many Kenyans are not resting easy in America
By CHRIS WAMALWA in the Daily Nation
Link:
Extracts:
David Amakobe, a Kenyan-born immigration activist in Middletown, Delaware, says Trump’s Executive Order has four basic priorities for deportation.
1. Those convicted of
any offence. (Parking ticket)
2. Those who have been charged of a crime, but not convicted. (Jay walking, driving while black)
3. Those who have broken the law but have neither been charged nor convicted.
4. People with final administrative deportation orders.
Simon Kamau, a Kenyan-born resident of Lancaster, Pennsylvania is one of an estimated four million immigrants in the US who had hoped they would qualify for the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program announced by President Obama in 2014.
This was meant to allow undocumented parents with children who are US citizens to qualify for permission to work and a temporary protection from deportation if they met certain conditions.
However, President Trump has promised to rescind them.
Mr Amakobe says it is the wrong time to be an illegal immigrant in the US.
“But, people should know that this too shall pass because America has been here several times before.
Soon, there is going to be a backlash and the country (Trump) will come back to its senses,” he says.