Kenyans third most productive immigrants in US

Kenyan immigrants working in the US have been ranked as the third most industrious foreigners.

They scored 73.4 per cent to emerge third in the list of the hard working and most skilled immigrant groups in the US, according to a 2018 Bloomberg report.

The research ranks Ghanaians and Bulgarians at positions one and two, with 75.2 per cent and 74.2 per cent, respectively.

Other African countries that feature in the report's top 10 are Ethiopia (4th), Egypt (5th), Nigeria (8th) and Liberia (9th). This makes Africans, in general, the most productive immigrants in the US ahead of those from Mexico and Central America, who constitute more than 70 per cent of foreign nationals in that country.

“If we want more highly skilled and hardworking English-speaking immigrant obviously the place to go for them in Africa,” Bloomberg journalist Justin Fox, who came up with the report, said.

The report put the number of Kenyans who legally live and work in the US at 120,000. But ironically, the report comes on the backdrop of President Donald Trump administration’s continued crackdown on illegal immigrants, including Kenyans.

Last year, more than 100 Kenyans were deported from the US — a sharp increase since Trump assumed power on January 20, 2017.

The rise — from 63 in 2016 to 103 last year — reflects an overall increase in deportation of Africans. The Bloomberg report, developed from the 2016 US Census Bureau American Community Survey, also indicates that Kenya is among the African countries with the highest number of immigrants studying and working in the US.

According to the report, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Nepal have the highest number of citizens pursuing higher education in the US after Saudi Arabia.