Resettlement's Nightmare: The Plight of the “Lost Boys and Girls of South Sudan” in the West

By Willy Mayom Maker, Canada

Monday, February 03, 2020 (PW) — In Africa, wild animals (lions, elephants, giraffes, etc.) roam freely in the wilderness. But when these animals are brought to Western countries, they are kept in zoos; meanwhile, local animals (bears, coyotes, kangaroos, etc.) live in the wilderness where they belong. The imported animals are properly tamed and kept in the zoo solely for tourism and entertainment purposes –very lucrative sources of income for the local governments.

As an immigrant, you feel like you are quarantined in the zoo, too, though your zoo is invisible to the naked eyes. When you first arrive in the U.S.A, for example, your movement is restricted. You can’t just travel all you want. No! You must accumulate at least three years of physical presence in the country before being given a ‘Resident Card’ or ‘Green Card’ for traveling. During the probation period, traveling outside the country is strongly discouraged.

 If you travel without the Green Card, you may not be allowed back into the country, especially if you stay away for too long. In other words, any strong-headed immigrant who travels against the will of the Immigration System (which I also call Domestication or Taming System), can’t be readmitted into the country simply because he appears to be too difficult to tame.

After staying for five years without criminal records, you will be awarded the Green Card. Meaning you have shown signs of improvement in the taming process. Then, after a few more years of obeying every petty rule and regulation, you will be granted your citizenship status and passport. The taming process is successful.

After you get your citizenship and passport, you feel like a free man. You can travel anywhere you want. Great! It’s been nearly ten years without seeing your relatives and friends in South Sudan. You are going! But you can’t, because you have no money. You have to find a job first to save money to buy a ticket. But you can’t find a decent job, because you don’t “know English” very well. You have to go back to school to learn English and gain the knowledge and skills required in the workforce. Even if you possess a degree from another country, your degree is irrelevant here. Employers mostly prefer American credentials.

So, you enroll in a nearby college or university. No money? No problem! The government gives you student loans. One chain is on your neck!

Four or five years later, you graduate with a degree. And with skyrocketing tuition fees and living expenses, your student loans and other debts are up to your neck. You are drowning in debts, literally! You must find a job now! You have to find a job quickly to start paying your loan to avoid their crippling interest rates. You also have to save money to buy a ticket to visit your home country.

You find a job. But you need a car that can take you to work on time. No money? No problem! Your bank will give you some loan to purchase a car. So, you rush to a nearby bank to get the loan. While you are getting the loan, the bank stuffs mortgage, line of credits, and credit cards down into your throat. Now you have tens of thousands of dollars at your disposal. A couple of more chains are added and secured down by cement!

Your phone rings day and night. Back home, your parents are sick and need money for treatments; your brother impregnates a girl, and he needs cows to marry the girl; your sister is about to be expelled from school because she didn’t of school fees; your friend is in a refugee camp; your uncle is stuck in Nairobi and wants money to return to South Sudan; your aunt is hungry in Kampala; a cousin in Khartoum needs money; a nephew in Cairo; you name it. All these people need your support, not even to mention your own family here in the West.

You have no choice. You can’t let you people die when you have thousands of dollars at your disposal. So you start withdrawing cash from your credit cards, line of credits and even mortgage loans to send it to your people. You keep withdrawing even though you know you can’t pay it back. You want to save your people back home. You are sacrificing yourself so that your people can survive.

You have now been living in the U.S.A for over fifteen (15) years already. You miss your family, relatives, and friends dearly in South Sudan, and you wish to visit so badly. But you can’t, because you are completely chained and cemented down by the government, the employer, and the bank – through taxes, mortgage, loans, bills, health care fees, and so on.

After working days and nights for more than 15 years, you finally pay off most of your debts, loans, and mortgages. You feel lighter. You have broken off most of the chains. Now you think you can work for a year or two to save money to finally visit home!

One day, however, you receive a letter in your mailbox. It is from the government. The letter states that the house that you purchased is now too old to be livable. It requires renovation. If not, it will be demolished because it is “unsafe” to be inhabited.

You need a roof over your head and your family. No money? No problem! The bank loans you money for the renovation. More chains! While you are thinking about how much the renovation will cost, you receive another letter in the mail. The letter is from your ex-girlfriend, whom you lost contact with over ten years ago. She claims that you had impregnated her and that she has your ten-year-old child and she needs you to pay child support. She takes you to court and the judge rules in her favor. You owe over $50,000 in child support. Chains and cement!

Your hell has just broken loose! You can’t afford to pay the child support, the loans, the credit cards, and all the other bills. As a result, you are sent to bill collectors (collection agencies) – ruthless groups of people trained for a specific purpose of driving you crazy. They torture you psychologically. They garnish your wages. Your credit is ruined – you are not qualified to get any loan from any bank anywhere anytime, ever.

Additionally, the government confiscates your passport and other personal identifications to prevent you from running away. Now, you are just like a fly caught in a spider web. And the webmaster is slowly but surely sucking the blood and flesh out of you.

Since you have no money to send to your people back home; they think you have money but you don’t want to give them any. So they will not even talk to you. You need emotional support but your relatives are not there to provide it. Your people back home don’t even have the money just to buy the ‘airtime units’ to call and say hi to you. You are on your own.

Now you are 40-years-old. The anxiety is trickling down to your family (wife and children). At school, your children are mocked and bullied by other children, because of their dark skin, cropped hair, flat noses, and brown eyes. Your ten-year-old-boy, with African mentality of course, just can’t stand being bullied. He fights back in self-defense against the bullies. Now your child is a trouble maker. The school principal summons you in a meeting and warns you to do something about your son’s animalistic behavior; otherwise, he will be expelled from the school permanently.

You come home angry and whip your child on the buttocks and warn him not to fight in school again. The following morning, your son goes to school looking unhappy. A nosy teacher asks your son why he looks unhappy. Your son says “Dad beats me.” The teacher immediately calls the police and Child Protection Services. You are nothing but a “child abuser”! All your children are taken away from you. And from there on, they’ll continue yanking children out of your wife’s behind like chicken eggs. Your children are kept in government shelters or given to other people for adoption. They are already in the zoo.

Before you know it, you are already 65 years old. You are officially retired, but you have no retirement savings. You still haven’t completed your child support payments. On top of that, the bank is threatening to foreclose your house. You have no choice but to leave retirement and go back to the workforce. But by that time, technology has changed, and the workforce requires new technology and new skills. You have to go back to school again to learn the new technology before you are hired by an employer. You are backed to square one, again! You can’t keep up!

Your wife has left you for another man. Your children are adopted by other American couples. Your relatives back home have completely forgotten you because you don’t send them money anymore. You are old. You are exhausted. You are depressed. You are hopeless and you useless. Finally, you succumb, just like those poor animals in the zoo.

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