Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump in Asheboro, North Carolina August 21 and US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Raleigh, North Carolina, on August 16, 2024 are seen in a combination of file photographs.
As the US heads to the elections on November 5, 2024, Kenyans living in the country are concerned about their safety and stay, especially if the Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump, wins.
Mr Trump, who is battling to dislodge the Democrats and return to the White House, has threatened mass deportation of immigrants if he beats Kamala Harris.
Mr Trump, who has been accused by mainstream US media of pursuing radical and racist ideology in his campaigns, laced with extreme rhetoric and conspiracy theories, is in a dead heat with Harris.
Trump’s plan includes a terrifying agenda of stripping immigrants of their constitutionally protected naturalised citizenship and terminating the family reunification programme that allows permanent residents and the (naturalised) citizens to petition for their relatives to join them in the US.
The racially motivated shooting in the neck of a Kenyan immigrant in Minneapolis, recently, has exacerbated the fears among Kenyans who believe that the Trump presidency, if it comes to fruition, is going to introduce very tough anti-immigrant policies that will push many foreigners, among them Kenyans, out of the US.
Mr Davis Moturi, who was shot and critically wounded in Minnesota, had made close to 20 complaints to the Minneapolis police that a White neighbour was threatening to kill him because of racial hatred, but the law enforcers failed to act and provide him protection.
With the heightened political and racial tensions, the anti-immigrant rhetoric has exposed Kenyan immigrants to potential risks and many are bracing themselves for hard times ahead.
Violent confrontation
When confronted by media and other local leaders as to why they failed to protect the Kenyan-American citizen before his alleged racist neighbour shot him, police claimed that they feared for their lives and that they did not want to endanger anybody.
Pushed to explain why it took them a week to arrest the alleged assailant, Minneapolis City Police Chief, Brian O’Hara, retorted, “The likelihood of an armed violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect in this case is high. We are not going to bust the door down, guns blazing and get into a deadly force situation.”
Speaking to Nation.Africa, Kenyan community leaders in the US, led by Advocate Henry Ongeri, urged fellow Kenyans living in America not to succumb to the racist threats because they are constitutionally protected from illegal actions.
Mr Ongeri, who runs a diaspora law firm in Minneapolis, observed that Black people in America are one bullet away from death.
The police in Minneapolis, Ongeri said, failed to take steps to protect Mr Moturi who had informed the authorities, many times, that his life was in danger because of being black and living next to a white man.
Mr Ongeri criticised the police for showing outright racial biases but assured the local Kenyan community that they should not be intimidated by what he termed a cowardly act by a misguided racist.
“Although I do not know the victim personally, he is a resident of Minneapolis where I also live. I would like to say that as a black man, I am saddened by the case and the fact that he made complaints about endless racial harassment that were not investigated by the police and properly addressed, concerns all of us,” said Mr Ongeri.
He pointed out that it was in Minneapolis that a white police officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, killing him instantly.
Mr Ongeri urged the Kenyan community to remain vigilant against what he termed as criminals who may wish to cause them harm.
"I would also like to remind them that as residents of Minneapolis and its suburbs, we are here to stay. We are going nowhere and anybody who thinks they can scare us away needs to think twice. This too is our home and we own it,” said Mr Ongeri.
“Our community does not get better when complaints are not investigated, and or, acted upon on time by the police who are supposed to protect us,” said Mr Ongeri.
Another Kenyan living in the Midwest expressed fears about what he termed an unprecedented hatred that has been introduced into the US elections, which is threatening to lower America's global standing as a model of democracy.
"We are on the threshold of America being fast degenerating into third world political class with top national leaders pursuing dangerous racist ideology that is threatening to revive the horrors of Jim Crow and rekindle the unresolved anguish of slavery," said the Kenyan who is a naturalised citizen of the US.
He pointed out that the campaign slogan of ‘Making America Great Again’ simply means resorting to the dark past where black people were enslaved and treated like animals.
“We have recently witnessed white high school children in Missouri attacking their black counterparts, with one particular school district registering the worst cases of racism,” said the Kenyan professional who sought anonymity fearing victimisation.
“With the previously unspoken racist comments, the vicious attacks on blacks and immigrant communities of colour by a presidential candidate who has called them (Blacks) animals contaminating the blood of America has emboldened racists to overtly scorn at blacks and treat them as such—animals.”
Whichever direction the elections go, Kenyans in the US are concerned that the damage the politicians have done to the already racially divided country will take very long to address.
