On the flip side, a good number of Tanzanians are wary of Kenyans in the age old sense of "these guys are encroaching on our land/jobs/women etc" which is petty and parochial for someone who has traveled the world and live in the US . But to locals, it is their worldview.
I have perspective on how the US used immigration to its advantage. I was listening to the BBC World Service today, they had an episode describing a very complicated surgery procedure, essentially the surgery was to remove a tumor that was growing on an unborn child. There were only four hospitals that have a record of having done this successfully in the entire USA.
They went to one of these hospitals, the leading doctor who was directing a team of surgeons on this mission was a Nigerian Dr. That reminded me of another Nigerian doctor,
Bennet Omalu of the movie "
Concussion" fame the guy who basically presented solid evidence that football causes, and eventually got the operation done. This made me think, all these Nigerian doctors are probably trained in Nigeria for years, then the Americans just take them at the peak of their careers.
Granted, not every Kenyan immigrant is a rock star neurosurgeon, but still,if someone has married a Tanzanian citizen and get citizenship, starts a family etc, it is just cruel to uproot him.
As a Tanzanian immigrant abroad, I can see the injustice in that. This could very easily lead to retaliatory moves and we don't want that.
I am thankful that where I am, to a good extent, people are more open about immigration and there is a good number of immigrants from everywhere. Frankly that makes the place more diverse and vibrant.
As long as people immigrate legally into Tanzania, they should have the full protection of the law.
My worry is that, it is quite conceivable that agents of the law are the very people harassing immigrants.