For 16 years, Samuel Kangethe built a life in the United States studying, working, raising a family. Now, the father of three has decided to walk away from it all and return to Kenya, a choice he says was driven by the relentless anxiety of living under America’s tightening immigration policies.
Kangethe first set foot in the U.S. in 2009 on a student visa, enrolling at Lansing Community College before transferring to Norwood University. A trained accountant, he eventually worked for the State of Michigan. Life seemed to be on track, he married, started a family, and received conditional residency. But almost from the beginning, immigration officials questioned the legitimacy of his marriage, sparking a legal case that dragged on for years without resolution.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, court proceedings slowed to a crawl. Then, without warning, his case vanished from the court docket no judgment, no closure, only uncertainty.
That uncertainty deepened when former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration began tightening immigration laws. Kangethe says people in his situation were clear targets. “A person like me with a case in the court, I check all the boxes of people they will start with,” he explained.
In the years since, his personal life changed a divorce, a remarriage to an American citizen, and the birth of a new family. But even with seven years in his current marriage, the threat of deportation hung over him. Friends advised him to “lay low,” but to Kangethe, that meant sacrificing the very things that made life worth living.
“What do you mean, ‘lay low’?” he asked. “Does it mean I can’t take my kids to their game? To their orchestra concert? Their first day of school, like I have for the rest of their lives?”
Faced with the choice of hiding in the shadows or returning to Kenya on his own terms, Kangethe chose the latter. It is, he says, the only way to reclaim his dignity and live without fear even if it means leaving behind the country he has called home for nearly two decades.
