ALL TRUMPED OUT

Reading the story about Donald Trump’s new immigration policy and seeing those images of the children really hit home for me (YOU, 5 July).

Due to political issues and violence my family and I fled from our country to seek asylum in South Africa. At 16 it was a big change. I left behind my friends, my home, my extended family, my sense of security. What I lost was priceless.

It’s been 11 years now and what a journey I’ve been on. Every single day you try to forge a new life, a new beginning, a new chapter. All the odds are bound to be against you. You hear, “Foreigners are taking our jobs, our men, our women.” You’re labelled a kwerekwere (a derogatory term for foreigner).

You hold on to the hope that one day the grass will become green again where you came from, but then you wonder, “Will I fit in? Have I been away too long?” But you don’t fit in where you are now either. Will you forever remain lost? Where is home? Where do you belong?

Yes, I feel for the immigrants trying to enter the USA. I hope the grass is greener for them there and that they’ll make a new life and be able to start over again. C MBANGANI, EMAIL