OSEN: SA Xenophobia: True cost of immigration no-one tells you

In the land of Nelson Mandela, groups of citizens, some in their anti-apartheid-era regalia, are hunting down other Africans, claiming they are taking their jobs and opportunities, rounding them up in the streets and demanding that they go home.

In the West, while citizens mostly fill the streets protesting immigrants and the policies that enable them, they are not marching door to door to eject foreigners, at least for now.

But for anybody out there, young or old, contemplating or even admiring the prospect of moving abroad, you may need to pay attention.

No one tells you the real story of immigration and the experience of the diaspora community. Scratch beneath the glittering stories seen in movies, remittance figures  and Instagram pictures.

Many immigrants, including Kenyans living abroad, would rather stay in their country of birth, where they are not only welcomed but also belong, if the economy and public systems were working.

As an immigrant myself, I suspect I speak for many when I say that while one may live in a nice house, drive a sleek car and enjoy functioning systems and infrastructure abroad, there is often a gaping hole that can only be filled by belonging back home.

There is a particular way a black immigrant learns to walk in the West: careful, measured, never too loud, never too certain of his welcome. You learn the geography of suspicion.

You learn which moves make you feel watched, which shop aisle suddenly becomes narrow, which police siren makes your stomach tighten even when you have done nothing.

You learn that legality is not the same as belonging. Papers may let you work, study, pay taxes and rent a room, but they do not always protect you from being treated as a pending accusation.

It is not the glossy story of success told at airports and family gatherings. It is a life lived between two pressures: the hardship that pushed you out and the hostility that may await where you land.

At home, the economy tightens around families with the patience of a noose. School fees rise, medical bills arrive without warning, jobs shrink, farms fail, businesses stall, and the educated son or daughter becomes not merely a graduate but a family investment expected to mature.

Abroad, that same person often becomes a foreigner first, a worker second and sometimes, because of the colour of his skin, a suspect before he has opened his mouth.

Thanks to the Mwai Kibaki years, many millennials and Gen Zs, who make up the bulk of the population, are highly educated. But given the massive poverty, and which many argue was deepened during the Jubilee UhuRuto years, that investment in education has not yielded the expected dividend.

When that graduate crosses a border, he does not travel alone. He carries WhatsApp messages about rent arrears, hospital bills and fundraisers, school balances, funeral contributions and the quiet sentence that governs so many diaspora lives: We are depending on you.

Diaspora community continue to prove their generosity and kindred spirit.  The Central Bank of Kenya's remittance figures show monthly inflows running into the hundreds of millions of dollars, with North America, Europe and other regions forming the major channels through which Kenyans abroad send money home.

Recent reports placed Kenya's annual diaspora inflows near record levels, with 2024 totals reported at roughly $4.9 billion and the United States remaining the largest source.

Behind those numbers are night shifts, double shifts, humiliating jobs, delayed meals, lonely rooms, abandoned dreams and people who cannot afford to collapse because an entire household may collapse with them.

If a crime is committed, the immigrant prays twice: first for the victim, and then that the accused is not an immigrant, not African, not Black.

Worse still when the incident is picked up by far-right media echo chambers trafficking in extreme language and normalising the description of non-white immigrants as "third-world trash."

The lawful immigrant who has followed every rule suddenly walks around feeling as though he is one incident away from collective punishment.

This is the prism through which the mayhem at the southern tip of Africa should be understood. While some protesters may have legitimate grievances about poverty, unemployment and hopelessness, the scapegoating of fellow Africans is shameful, retrogressive in the year of our Lord 2026, and wholly unwelcome.

While President William Ruto has been making a forceful case for a united continent with immense potential, given its natural resources, youthful population and educated workforce, images of African-on-African hostility undermine that vision.

Those in the Global North do not need a better counterargument to President Ruto's pitch than scenes of xenophobia making headlines across the continent.

In fact, no matter the point at issue, Africa should steadily and deliberately move towards deeper integration. The colonial borders that divide us have outlived much of their purpose.

A single passport, easier job mobility, open skies and stronger continental unity could actually boost the hand of Africa, cut outbound immigration and strengthen our lot.

But also, in the context of our country and in light of next year's election, the sustained spirit of negative tribalism that has become commonplace on social media is beyond embarrassing.

It is even more embarrassing because much of it comes from people presumed to be educated and exposed, having gone to school and worked alongside fellow citizens from different ethnic backgrounds. Sadder still, much of this ethnic profiling is done at the behest of politicians.

Hear this from a well-sourced journalist: politicians do not care about you. Do not fight for them. Do not hate for them. Let us simply demand better for our country.