Over an year now, I have made a deep observation and research — one that may surprise many people who assume that everyone who migrates to the United States wants to stay forever. That is not true. For many immigrants, America was never the final destination. It was a strategy.
When people left cities and villages across Africa, parts of Asia, or Latin America, they did not always leave to become Americans. They left to earn. To gather capital. To build something. The plan was simple: endure America, accumulate wealth, and return home stronger. But reality has a way of reshaping plans.
I have listened carefully in immigrant community gatherings, at celebrations, during serious conversations after church services, and in private discussions late at night. The sentence is almost always the same: “I’m just here to make money. I will go back.”
Even those who arrived recently say it. It is spoken with confidence, sometimes even pride. America is described as a marketplace, not a homeland.
Yet as the years pass, something changes. Instead of aggressively building wealth, some people begin to consume the lifestyle around them. The United States is designed for movement and spending. Credit is easy. Appearances matter. Success must be visible. There is pressure—not only from American society but also from family back home who expect evidence that migration was worth it. So money flows outward instead of upward.
Cars are financed. Apartments are upgraded. Celebrations are frequent. Trips are taken. Social media displays progress. Meanwhile, time quietly disappears.
Now I see a different kind of conversation emerging among older immigrants. It is softer, heavier. It carries regret. They say they want to go home. Not for vacation—but for good.
They speak of the village roads, the familiar language, the rhythm of life that does not revolve around bills and schedules. They speak of being known, not just documented. They speak of dignity in aging among their own people. But they cannot go.
And here is the irony that I cannot ignore: the way young people get stuck in major African cities is the same way many immigrants are stuck in America.
In cities like Lagos, Accra, or Nairobi, young men and women leave their villages to “make it.” They promise to return successful. Yet city expenses consume their income. Survival becomes routine. Returning home feels like failure.
Years pass. They are neither fully urban elites nor rural villagers anymore.
In the same way, many immigrants in the United States are suspended between two worlds. They are not fully American in identity, yet they have delayed building stability back home. They exist in between.
If many of them could secure a steady $2,000 per month income, I believe a large number would leave America almost immediately. In many of their home countries, that income would provide comfort and respect. It would allow them to build modest homes, support family, and live without the relentless financial pressure of American life. But where would that income come from?
For those who did not invest early—either in property in the United States or in enterprises back home—there is no passive foundation. There is only continued labor. And labor grows heavier with age. This is the part that few discuss openly.
Migration is celebrated. Struggle is praised. Success stories are amplified. But the quiet reality of those who intended to return—and now cannot afford to—remains largely unspoken.
From where I stand, I recognize something deeper: many immigrants never stopped loving where they came from. They postponed their return in pursuit of security. But postponement without strategy becomes permanence without intention.
America did not trap them by force. Time did. Consumption did. Lack of exit planning did. And now, in the later chapters of life, some are discovering that going home requires more than desire. It requires preparation that should have begun decades earlier. This is not condemnation. It is reflection.
If migration is a bridge, it must lead somewhere. Otherwise, it becomes a place where people stand for too long—watching the homeland on one side and America on the other—belonging fully to neither. And that, perhaps, is the quiet cost no one warned them about.
When people left cities and villages across Africa, parts of Asia, or Latin America, they did not always leave to become Americans. They left to earn. To gather capital. To build something. The plan was simple: endure America, accumulate wealth, and return home stronger. But reality has a way of reshaping plans.
I have listened carefully in immigrant community gatherings, at celebrations, during serious conversations after church services, and in private discussions late at night. The sentence is almost always the same: “I’m just here to make money. I will go back.”
Even those who arrived recently say it. It is spoken with confidence, sometimes even pride. America is described as a marketplace, not a homeland.
Yet as the years pass, something changes. Instead of aggressively building wealth, some people begin to consume the lifestyle around them. The United States is designed for movement and spending. Credit is easy. Appearances matter. Success must be visible. There is pressure—not only from American society but also from family back home who expect evidence that migration was worth it. So money flows outward instead of upward.
Cars are financed. Apartments are upgraded. Celebrations are frequent. Trips are taken. Social media displays progress. Meanwhile, time quietly disappears.
Now I see a different kind of conversation emerging among older immigrants. It is softer, heavier. It carries regret. They say they want to go home. Not for vacation—but for good.
They speak of the village roads, the familiar language, the rhythm of life that does not revolve around bills and schedules. They speak of being known, not just documented. They speak of dignity in aging among their own people. But they cannot go.
And here is the irony that I cannot ignore: the way young people get stuck in major African cities is the same way many immigrants are stuck in America.
In cities like Lagos, Accra, or Nairobi, young men and women leave their villages to “make it.” They promise to return successful. Yet city expenses consume their income. Survival becomes routine. Returning home feels like failure.
Years pass. They are neither fully urban elites nor rural villagers anymore.
In the same way, many immigrants in the United States are suspended between two worlds. They are not fully American in identity, yet they have delayed building stability back home. They exist in between.
If many of them could secure a steady $2,000 per month income, I believe a large number would leave America almost immediately. In many of their home countries, that income would provide comfort and respect. It would allow them to build modest homes, support family, and live without the relentless financial pressure of American life. But where would that income come from?
For those who did not invest early—either in property in the United States or in enterprises back home—there is no passive foundation. There is only continued labor. And labor grows heavier with age. This is the part that few discuss openly.
Migration is celebrated. Struggle is praised. Success stories are amplified. But the quiet reality of those who intended to return—and now cannot afford to—remains largely unspoken.
From where I stand, I recognize something deeper: many immigrants never stopped loving where they came from. They postponed their return in pursuit of security. But postponement without strategy becomes permanence without intention.
America did not trap them by force. Time did. Consumption did. Lack of exit planning did. And now, in the later chapters of life, some are discovering that going home requires more than desire. It requires preparation that should have begun decades earlier. This is not condemnation. It is reflection.
If migration is a bridge, it must lead somewhere. Otherwise, it becomes a place where people stand for too long—watching the homeland on one side and America on the other—belonging fully to neither. And that, perhaps, is the quiet cost no one warned them about.
