The New Top Foreign Exchange Earner For Kenya: Illegal Immigrants

The Kenyan government says that in the 2005/06 financial year that ended in June this year, remittances by Kenyans living in the US through the Western Union were a staggering Kshs 58 billion.

Some brief research by this blogger unearthed two interesting facts. Firstly that this figure is only a tiny drop in the ocean. Remittances for smaller amounts are usually done using the alternative to Western Union, which is Moneygram. Other remittances are also done directly to bank accounts, especially for larger amounts. Then bear in mind that the figure released recently by the government covers only Kenyans in the United States. There are lots of Kenyans spread across Europe, not to mention Asia and the Far East.

There is no doubt that remittances and investments back home by Kenyans living out of the country is now a major foreign exchange earner and one of the reasons why the Kenya shilling continues to be so strong in relation to other major foreign currencies.

The second interesting fact that will shock most is that it seems that the vast majority of these remittances are from illegal Kenyan immigrants spread across the globe.

In the US alone, Kenya has tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who went there under all sorts of pretexts.

What is interesting is that Kenyans continue to flee to foreign lands in search of the opportunities that have become scarce back home. And more and more, they are prepared to take the risks of being jailed and even shameful repatriation back home.

This blogger has been informed that there are a large number of illegal immigrants of Kenyan origin in neighboring Tanzania and the government in that country routinely arrests them and jails them at a prison in the outskirts of Dar-es-salaam, before repatriation back home. The Kenya government routinely does the same to Tanzanian nationals caught in the country without valid visas. It seems that some of the stuff we read in the press about the East African Customs Union, increased co-operation and the coming free movement of labour is pure fiction on the ground.

Clearly Kenyans should be very grateful that geographically the country is in Eastern Africa and not in Western or Northern Africa. Otherwise numerous Kenyans would have been regularly drowning trying to brave the high seas on a canoe trying to reach Europe where thousands of illegal African immigrants are pouring into daily.

Scores of Kenyan immigrants, most of them illegal can be found all over Africa from the Cape to Cairo. Talking of the Cape, I am also informed that local blacks there greatly despise Kenyan immigrants. This is mainly because of their enterprising nature and aggression. Many locals see them snatching away opportunities that would have otherwise gone to them.

Many of these Kenyans spread across the continent remit money back home to Kenya on a regular basis. It seems that Kenyans are quietly but rapidly becoming a major force to reckon with worldwide, even if most of them are in their host countries illegally. (See blog that focuses on illegal African immigrants.)

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