Economic Integration of African Immigrants

Guest Blogger: Deborah Ibonwa, second-year law student, University of San Francisco

African immigrants in the United States, specifically those from the sub-Saharan region, are having the hardest time trying to integrate and thrive into the American workforce. They can be highly educated when they get here or spend years trying to obtain the necessary qualifications, but ultimately cannot get anywhere economically because of practical, unavoidable reasons and cultural/racial barriers. Most members of this immigrant group (refugees, for example, who do not have a choice as to where they resettle), also are forced to lose their original citizenship when migrating and cannot hope for repatriation in their home country because of centuries-old violence and civil and political unrest.

The Migration Policy Institute reports that “Sub-Saharan immigrants tend to have much higher educational attainment compared to the overall foreign- and native-born populations …”, however, the underemployment rate for this group is 39 percent, compared to 20 percent of college-educated U.S. workers and 25 percent of other foreign-educated immigrants. The problem begins with the lack of necessary documents, which are usually burned or stolen or lost in the midst of turmoil that these people escape from. Without these documents, they have no way of obtaining work that match their experience, meaning they have to go back to school and graduate at the time most Americans retire or start thinking about retirement. The other difficulty comes in with the long path to citizenship, which can take up to a decade for every immigrant, and without which one cannot hope to get a stable job or maintain a stable life for one’s family. Even once all of this is achieved it becomes very difficult for many to build professional networks and gain respect due to the racial and cultural barriers that thrive in our country. For example, older asylees and refugees who retain their accents after learning English are often turned away from jobs because they are not perceived to be the ideal “American” candidate that companies would like their employees to represent. Although refugee populations tend to be less educated than asylees who voluntarily come to settle in the United States, they still face the much of the same issues.

Some states have taken steps toward facilitating the economic integration of Africans, including Michigan and Illinois. Michigan has worked with employment advocacy agencies to build licensing guides for twenty professions in order to help immigrants know how to begin rebuilding their careers. The state also passed a bill that reduces the number of hours needed to get licenses as a barber with proof of recent experience and training. A bill was introduced in Illinois that would prohibit the denial of a professional license because of federal immigration status. The Welcoming America network is a national initiative which began in Tennessee that creates policies to assist immigrants in navigating the U.S. system. The difficulties with integration of Africans on the U.S. economic ladder will hopefully become easier to overcome with the expansion of these and similar state initiatives, but overall this is a major immigration concern for a rapidly growing population that does not receive the attention it needs.

Sub-Saharan African immigrants in the United States have been forced to let go of hopes for stability and thriving careers in their home countries in order to build a safe life for their families in our country. Yet because of a variety of reasons, this highly educated group is underemployed and overworked in classes of employment way below their expertise that do not allow them to make a feasible income. There is some hope in the future to facilitate economic integration, but for now it seems that older generations of these immigrant groups have to work twice as hard as the majority of Americans and focus on building a better future for their children.

bh