Inside a small room in Conakry’s Maison Centrale prison, a uniformed police chief sat armed with a recorder.

 

Why don’t you want to let us govern in peace?, he asked. Why do you want to take away our power?

 

Saikou Balde, the inmate being questioned, could not speak. He felt as though he was suffocating. His silence prompted the police chief to order the guard who was in the room with them to begin beating him. And so he was hit, repeatedly, with a baton for almost an hour. The police chief sat on a seat next to him as he lay on the floor. Saikou remembers looking up at him helplessly as he lit up a cigarette, unfazed. This was just another day in Maison Centrale.

 

Now, Saikou sits in another small room, this time on the third floor above a Brooklyn credit union, wearing a suit and an airpod in his left ear. From his appearance, you would think he had just returned from his job in the financial district. That is, until he begins to talk.

 

Our conversation is conducted in French, as he tells me of his time in confinement. How he was crammed in one of the rooms of Maison Centrale de Conakry, the colonial era prison that despite being built to hold 300 prisoners, was now holding almost 2000 individuals. He was detained in July of 2023. Many, such as himself, were there on political charges without arrest warrants. Balde was a member of the Front National pour la Défense de la Constitution (FNDC), an opposition coalition created to campaign against the then-president, Alpha Conde’s attempt to amend the constitution. Following the 2021 coup, the FNDC became a key force in calling for the reestablishment of democratic rule.

 

When his family, lawyers and fellow activists were finally able to obtain his conditional release five months after his detainment, Balde knew he had no choice but to leave Conakry for good. All around him, FNDC members and other activists were being detained, disappearing or killed. His release was a stroke of luck and an opportunity; he knew that one way or another, he had to find a way out of Guinea before his next prison stint turned out differently. And so in January 2024, Balde made his way to Dakar, Senegal, going on to Istanbul, Turkey. From there, he would embark on what has been dubbed the ‘luxury route’ to the US by the New York times; a journey from West Africa to Latin America and into the US through the US-Mexico border. For him, this involved taking flights from Istanbul to Bogota, San Salvador and then Nicaragua, after which he used a variety of different modes of transport to get to Mexico and the Arizona border.

 

“I really didn’t want to leave. It was a question of saving myself,” Balde says. He shows me pictures of his wife, twin girls and baby boy who he left behind in Guinea on his phone. “That’s why I left. For them. I didn’t leave of my own free will, I left because it was necessary.”

 

More and more individuals such as Balde are making the long and arduous journey to the USA through transit stops in Central and South America, the route that has become known across West Africa as the ‘Nicaragua Route’. The numbers of migrants from these nations, although still only a small percentage of all individuals crossing the border, has dramatically increased over the years.

 

In 2023, the number apprehended at the border was 58,462; a 436.09% increase from 2022, when 13,406 migrants from African nations crossed, according to figures obtained by the New York Times. Driven by political violence, persecution or even just economic necessity, the trend reflects shifts in migration patterns that have seen young people, primarily from Senegal, Guinea, and Mauritania, set their sights on the US as their goal rather than Europe.

 

Insert interview with migration specialist – European borders being fortified? is this impacting the shift?

 

Ruth Maclean, chief of NYT’s West Africa bureau, points out that in order to make the journey, migrants have to have a significant amount of capital already, making this a migration route strictly reserved for the middle and upper classes. Flight packages from West Africa can cost up to $10,000, with thousands more being spent along the route.

 

Momadou Pethe, who now lives in Philadelphia, also immigrated from Guinea through the US-Mexico border following political persecution. His 49 day journey, in which he traveled by foot and bus after landing in Brasilia reveals the reality of the ‘luxury route’; a passage marked by extortion, physical hardship and police brutality.

 

Unlike Balde, who took flights for much of his journey, Pethe largely relied on buses to get to Mexico, traveling through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador before reaching the infamous Darien Gap in Colombia, which he had to cross by foot, an experience he says ….

 

~ insert his experience crossing the Darien gap

 

“From Peru, the policemen are taking your money,” Pethe explains. “When you meet the policemen, they take you off and check your stuff, and if they see your money, they take it.” Between each encounter, Pethe says he lost around $1000. By the time he reached Mexico, he had no money left and no means of getting more. He managed to make the last leg of his journey thanks to the generosity of another migrant he met, from Iran, who wired him $500 once he arrived in the US. They had met in Mexico, but Pethe had been forced to stay behind, unable to afford the rest of his journey.

 

“Among immigrants, if I see you and you have money, you help me,” Pethe said. “If I have money, I will help you. Even though we are not from the same place; you might be from Asia, India, or South Africa—if you see someone in need, you help them.”

 

~ Talk about the police brutality next – Saikou Balde and Talhatou’s experience

 

Next things to include:

 

The WHY

Push factors – insert interviews from Abdou, who lives in Senegal, academics emailed this week and Ruth Maclean,
Why certain nationalities predominate, Economic and social factors enabling the journey, Role of existing diaspora communities
Logistics – how this is being advertised (Abdou), what people’s perceptions are of the ‘nicaragua’ route in West Africa
Deeper analysis into regional trends maybe (unless covered in the section to be added on europe fortifying borders)

 

Present realities in the US & future outlook with Trump presidency

Language barriers, Economic integration } what factors are unique to African immigrants and asylum seekers
Little Senegal
Alpha Diallo’s work with Pan-African Community Development Initiative – is most of the support coming from within or outside of the community?
Success stories and support networks. Role of organizations like the Welcoming Center
Mamadou’s transition from asylum seeker to community worker
Concerns about Trump administration & the varying perspectives on future risks (Saikou’s optimism with Momadou Pethe & Alpha Diallo’s concerns)
Impact on future migration patterns – quote by academic / experts

 

Conclusion

broader implications
Future of African migration to US
Resilience, human cost, insular community, questions of integration?…..