20% Of South Africans Seriously Considering Leaving

20% Of South Africans Seriously Considering Emigration
9:01PM, Thursday, 22 May, 2008
A couple of years ago, the Mexican government got some very disturbing news. Thirty five percent of the college graduates would leave for the US tomorrow, if they could. Imagine the impact on a society with such a large portion of the professional people leaving. Now we see that 20% of the South Africans aged 18-44 are seriously considering leaving. This is the most economically productive portion of society. All of us know the old saying: "The grass is greener on the other side." I am sure that every language and dialect on the planet has the same saying. Before you start packing up, please allow me to share my experiences as one who has emigrated a couple of times in my life. Many years ago, immigration laws were easy in most places in the world including the USA. Societies still are looking for highly-skilled workers. In the old days, such workers found it easy to gain a work permit and permanent residence in a new country. This is not the case today. Please allow me to share the experiences of my wife. She was born in Argentina. She got an honors diploma from the University of Buenos Aires medical school. She became an oncology specialist in Argentina. She got so good that she was invited to present papers at international medical conferences all over the world. We met in 2000. We decided that we were right for each other. After much talk, I convinced her to come to the USA and marry me. Let us look at what happened next in two dimensions-getting papers in the US and getting a US medical license. It would appear easy for her to get papers because she was marrying a US citizen. We got married and then began the application for a Green Card. We hired an attorney. We had to produce a massive number of documents to prove that we lived together including copies of bank statements, utility bills,etc. After we got together a massive packet of documents, we were called into an interview one morning. Fortunately our interviewer was a very nice lady. She was clever and asked a couple of trick questions including the name of the three kids from my first marriage. Once Elena answered all of these questions, the rest of the interview was pleasant and we got approved. Elena went to get her work permit and Social Security card so she could work. The documents were full of mistakes and Elena had to go back twice to fix them. Several months later her Green Card arrived at our old house and got lost. We had a hassle of several months to get the Green Card reissued and sent to the correct address. The next step is the process was to get Elena US citizenship. We got a massive packet of documents to complete. We had to provide years of copies of bank statements,electricity bills, and other documents to prove that we lived together. The whole process was hell on earth and literally killed me. When Elena was sworn in as US citizen in June, 2006, we both were proud. Now let us go to Elena's battle to get a US medical license. Despite her 16 years as a doctor and all of her credentials, she was told that they did not count here in the USA. Elena had to start over from scratch. Once she ahd her work permit and Social Security card, her first job was a medical assistant working in a clinic that served the very poorest people in Oakland, California. She worked in an area with street gangs and plenty of violence. He second job was at another clinic serving low income people in East Palo Alto, California. It was another area full of street gangs and much violence. While working these two menial jobs, Elena had to take 3 rigorous examinations that US medical students have to take to be considered for a medical residency and a medical license. This was very hard for a person whose first language was Spanish. Despite all of this, Elena's test scores were in the top 5% of the US. They were equal to scores of Harvard and Stanford medical school graduates. When Elena finished all of these tests, she then had to compete for a place in a medical residency program. 98% or 99% of the US medical school graduates get accepted for a residency program. Only 20% of foreign medical school graduates get accepted for a US medical residency program. Elena beat the odds again and got accepted for a medical residency program at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in San Francisco. The next three years were unimaginable hell. Elena often had to work 30 hour workdays and keep up a pace meant for young people in their 20s. We also had to go through three years of hell to get her a California medical license. This was a mass of paperwork and numerous trips to the state capital. Elena also had to undergo an FBI background check that would have normally been done for an astronaut candidate or someone applying for a cabinet job. At the end of all of this process, it had cost us $30,000 US to take Elena from a lady getting off the plane to a medical doctor with US citizenship. Elena now is a doctor with a high income. She has a beautiful house, car, etc. She has job security and financial security. But she has to work 70 hours per week to get this. She is also separated from her family and friends. When she lived in Argentina, she went to work at nine and worked until one in the afternoon. She took a long lunch. She would then work until four in the afternoon on light administrative work. The evening was free for social events with friends and playing sports. Let us look at South African problems vs the US as follows: 1) Electrical black outs. These happen in the USA also when demand gets high. This is because environmentalists blocked the construction of new electricity generating plants. 2) Crime: If you go to many major American cities like Miami, LA, Detroit, etc, you will find that homicides, gang violence, car hijackings, and violent home invasion robberies are common. 3) Housing costs: If you are lucky and own a R1,000,000 house with the bond paid off, you could sell it and end up with roughly $130,000 US. Perhaps you could buy some sort of house for that amount of money in some small American town. If you want to live in LA, San Francisco, New York, Washington, DC, etc., you will need to pay $600,000 to $700,000 US to get a decent middle class house. With no employment or credit history in the USA, you would have problems getting a bond. If you are not highly skilled and with a lot of cash in your pocket, this whole process will be much worse. Please think and investigate carefully before you leave SA.