To readers from “immigration risk” countries, this may sound very harsh while those suffering from the impacts of illegal immigration would applaud. No country loves to keep illegal immigrants. In Ghana, which is known as one of the immigration risk countries in West Africa, there are periodic crackdowns on illegal immigration with Chinese and Nigerians suffering the most. Even investors who are bringing huge monies into the country go through hell to obtain residence permits. This tells you how serious it is to stay illegally in someone’s land.
The threats posed by illegal immigrants does not only affect the countries they are in but also affect those of us back home in one way or the other.
A doctor was denied visa to attend a conference. A man suffering from serious health complications was denied visa to seek medical care. Many others have been denied the opportunity to visit their families they have missed for years. Students denied visas to further their education. How do you feel about these visa denials? These and other people were denied visas because of illegal immigrants; because there are people who were granted visas under same condition and refused to return home after their stay.
I used to be very angry whenever I’m refused a visa till I got to understand the embassies. No matter how credible my reasons for traveling are, there was someone who applied with the same reasons and refused to return home after visa has been granted. So there is no way to convince a consular that your case is different.
Someone was granted a visa to seek for medical care abroad and never returned. Is your health condition very serious that you may die if not granted the visa? There are some people whose conditions were worse and refused to return after seeking medical attention abroad.
If we are denied visas, we should know that our family and friends who were unfaithful to their visa conditions are the reason.
Due to the actions of these illegal immigrants, most of us would never get the chance to see certain countries. So who are you blaming here? The embassies?
Let us take a look at how our brothers and sisters risk their lives on the Mediterranean Sea to enter Europe. If we could go to the extent of risking our lives just to travel and remain there illegally, then there’s no probability that those of us traveling safe by air would return, hence, the visa denials.
As a travel blogger aspiring to see the whole world, my greatest challenge has been obtaining visas for my trips. Upon distinguishing myself in this field with respect for immigration policies coupled with my travel experience to many countries, I still struggle in acquiring visas. There are even countries that do not have embassies or consulates to handle visa issues of travelers coming from our side of the world.
Countries like Russia and Mauritius deny entries to most tourists arriving from Ghana and we have ourselves to blame.
I know you’d love taking a vacation to your dream country. You might have killed that wish because you know you can’t get the visa. There’s a greater number of us who wish to just travel and explore but would never get the chance because of our family and friends who are illegal immigrants.
There are only two things we can do now to redeem our image and get Ghana off the “immigration risk” list.
First is to help in any way we can to fight illegal immigration by ensuring that all illegal immigrants are sent back to their various countries. Other than that, we have traded our travels in exchange for their stay.
Secondly, lets us all be faithful as a dog to the conditions of visas. When are we fortunate to be granted, let us adhere to the conditions that come along.
As the saying goes, the world is like a book and those who do not travel read only one page.
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