Following the Money
Migrant Remittances Kept Families Afloat. Then the Pandemic Hit.
Ali Kone, who now works as a shopper for Instacart in New York, was born in a working-class suburb of Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast. His father, a businessman in the retail industry, was the family’s main breadwinner, while his mother stayed home to take care of Kone and his nine siblings. Kone’s father had three other wives, a common Islamic practice in Sub-Saharan Africa, and eventually, seven other children, all of whom lived with Kone, his mother, and siblings. “We grew up in peace and love. We didn’t say, ‘this is my mom, this is not my mom’. We didn’t see any difference,” Kone said. After high school, Kone won a scholarship to a university in Moscow, where he studied accounting. He saw snow there for the first time, and lots of it. He then moved to France to further his education and met his wife. She too was from the Ivory Coast and together they decided to move back home, where they later had twin boys.
Kone came back to find a country still in crisis. A disputed election in 2011 had forced the country into its second civil war in a decade. Though the parties eventually laid down their arms, tensions continued to run high. Nonetheless, Kone threw himself into the work of the Rally of Republicans (RDR), a liberal party whose economic program appealed to him.
In 2016, escalating tensions between political parties in the Ivory Coast led to Kone no longer feeling safe as an open member of the RDR. At the time, his sons were just four years old. Having heard the United States was his best chance for asylum, he contacted an acquaintance in Mexico and got a visa to visit him, crossed into the U.S., and made his way to an immigration center.
He got his wish, but the detention center was not the respite he’d hoped. The experience was agonizing. “It was the most painful step in my life, to be treated as a criminal when I’m only asking for help,” he said.
After three weeks in San Diego, he was moved first to Arizona, and later New Jersey, where he stayed for three months before being discharged on an Order of Supervision to await his asylum hearing. In the meantime, he would be expected to meet periodically with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in the agency’s field office in Manhattan. However — he could work.
He first worked at a moving company in the Bronx. The pay wasn’t great, but the tips made up for it. Just six months later, he seized an opportunity many immigrants find attractive — driving with Uber. He rented a car for $400 a week and drove as much as he physically could, typically from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. It was grueling work — after a full shift in the car, his back hurt, and his mind was fried — but the pay was good. He found an apartment in Brooklyn, bought his own car so he would no longer have to rent one, and consistently sent $1,000 to his family every month. The money helped support his wife and kids, four of his sisters, and all nine of his nieces and nephews. He allocated $300 of the thousand for his mother, knowing if he sent any less, she might not be able to afford food or a trip to the doctor. When his friends found themselves in a tight financial situation, he was able to help them too.
In 2019, he registered at The New School hoping to increase his opportunities in the U.S. He was still driving 60 hours a week, sometimes more, often sleeping in his car for a few hours before hitting the road again. Exhausted at school and too busy to finish his assignments, he dropped out. Driving was his only life. Meanwhile, his asylum hearing kept getting delayed, year after year. He remained in limbo, forced to check with ICE, and unable to travel back home to see his family.
He stopped driving in March when the pandemic hit. For four months, he stayed in his apartment, unable to send a single dollar to his family, so he started driving again in July. Business was still dropping, but the stress and expenses were not.
Even if he brought in $1000 some weeks, at least $300 went to gas and expenses. It was impossible to find parking if he had to use a restroom, so he had to double park and go on foot in search of a bathroom. Usually, he would return to a traffic ticket with a fine on his windshield.
There was also the risk of getting sick. Despite mandates imposed by both Uber and the state of New York, when a passenger became verbally abusive at his request to don a mask, Kone decided he would no longer drive with Uber, or any other ride-sharing platform. He quit.
Almost immediately, he signed up as a shopper with Instacart. The pay was lower, but the tips were higher. With Instacart, an $800 weekly earning meant only about $50 in expenses. For the first time since his arrival, Kone felt a sense of liberation, one the immigration courts could take away in an instant.
For a country that prides itself on welcoming “your tired, your poor, and your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” the U.S. has had a very checkered history in terms of allowing in immigrants.
By 1914, nearly one million immigrants had passed through the doors of Ellis Island, most from southern and eastern Europe, and the First World War only served to exacerbate American xenophobia.
The Immigration Act of 1924 significantly narrowed immigration opportunities for Eastern and Southern Europeans and banned Asian immigration entirely. This ban would continue for the next 28 years.
In 1951, the United Nations (UN) created its first official refugee and asylum policies, but the United States would lag for over a decade. Fourteen years later, under the rising pressures of the Civil Rights Movement, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 altered the immigration system to one that prioritized reuniting families and welcoming skilled workers. 5 years later, immigration from Asia into the country more than quadrupled. The 1970s also ushered in a wave of migrants from Africa, one that would nearly double each decade. In 1986, over 3 million undocumented immigrants would be legalized. Since then, Mexico, China, India, and the Philippines have been the top countries of origin for immigrants entering the country.
Asylum seekers in the United States are split into two categories. Those requesting asylum upon entering the country may qualify for affirmative asylum, while defensive asylum is filed by undocumented persons currently living in the U.S. who are at risk of deportation. When Kone arrived in the States in 2016, he was one of roughly 2.8 million migrants entering the country without a visa that year, and one of 115,000 who would apply for affirmative asylum. By the end of 2016, his application would be backlogged with almost 200,000 others asking for affirmative asylum, almost half of which were filed between 2013 and 2015.
In 2019, asylum seekers waited an average of three years before their status was decided, but a quarter of applicants waited for nearly four. Kone’s case is currently one of over 350,000 pending affirmative asylum applications, many of which have been postponed due to COVID-19. Of those with hearings in 2020, both affirmative and defensive, 74% were denied asylum status. By the end of 2016, just a month before Donald Trump took office, denial rates stood at nearly 55%. Since then, they have continued to rise, with near 72% of cases being denied in 2019.
Though asylum seekers may be fleeing for their lives, they, along with most other immigrants, documented or not, working legally or off the books, hope to benefit not only from the personal but financial opportunities they see in the U.S. Many work with a goal of sending money home to help lift their families out of poverty. Billions of dollars flow out of the U.S. in the form of migrant remittances every year. In 2019, $72 billion was sent, more than half went to Mexico, China, and India. Countries in Africa received upwards of $10 billion in remittances from immigrants in the U.S. in 2017, the most recent year with such data available. That year, $7 million flowed into the Ivory Coast, and the majority was concentrated in Nigeria, which continues to be the continent’s largest remittance recipient. On a global scale, remittances to African countries have substantially impacted their domestic economies. In six African countries, remittances accounted for more than 10% of their GDP in 2019, most significantly 21% in Lesotho. In the Ivory Coast, they accounted for less than 1% of its economy, despite roughly 50% of the population living in poverty.
During COVID-19, global remittance flows plummeted, and are expected to drop by another 14% by the end of 2021, driving roughly 101 million more people into poverty. Even as countries implemented internal COVID-19 restrictions, the United States’ economic crisis had the largest global effect.
He often chooses to accept deliveries at this Wegman's location because he has memorized its layout. When he accepts an order, the app displays photographs of the exact items he needs, down to the brand. He heads for the vegetables on the far right. His every move is calculated yet effortless, as he glides through the rows straight to his first item. Arranged in three neat tiers, bundles of asparagus sit in tubs of water. He grabs one of the many bundles and scans its barcode with his phone camera into the app to mark this item off his list.
He is surprised to see that the Wegmans brand homemade cookies are not in their usual spot, the store must have moved them.
“Excuse me, my friend,” he says as he runs up to a female worker pushing a multi-layered cart with trays meant for bread. She is as lost as he is and directs him to the workers behind the bakery counter who locate the cookies in seconds. He thanks them, with yet another “my friend.”
As he turns into the following aisle, the rows of loose granola bars offer him a new challenge. ox after box of granola bars fill the shelves, each carton pre-opened and missing most of the packaging, allowing easy access to reach in. While convenient, he must scrupulously skim the four rows chock-full of boxes to locate his target. Finally, he eyes the cranberry almond Kind bars, grabs one, and scans it only to grab a handful right after, counting them out in his cart to make sure he has exactly six.
He likes this job; it is less stressful than Uber. There is no risk of tension with a customer if a passenger in the backseat is replaced with bags of groceries. He lugs a box of sparkling waters, producing a small grunt as he sets it on the bottom of the cart. He explains that this line of work is tiring on the body, something he prefers over a “tiring of the brain” when driving with Uber.
Just 20 minutes later, he glides into a checkout lane seconds before another Instacart shopper, who sighs at the result. They are all in a race against time.
Kone pulls out a green Instacart card from his wallet, a prepaid debit card, loaded with a pre-approved amount equal to the price of the batch. The numbers on the front are so filed down from use that you can barely read them.
Once his car is loaded, he sets out on the road to the Upper West Side. The doorman at the front of the luxury apartment building directs him to use the back entrance. “Rich people,” Kone sighs. He drives until he spots a door labeled “Deliveries”. Usually, Kone would haul the load himself, and hope for an elevator instead of a five-story walkup. He gets lucky this time, a security guard has agreed to help load the groceries onto a luggage cart and will bring the order upstairs himself.
Kone makes another delivery 80 blocks away on the east side of Harlem. He is in a rush, at home awaits dinner and a Facetime with his kids. He bought his sons a PlayStation, and they will be playing a live game together on separate continents, the next best thing to playing side by side.
Among gig workers in New York — Uber drivers, Instacart shoppers, Amazon Flex workers — Kone’s story is not uncommon.
When I first started reporting on the rideshare industry in early 2021, many of the Uber drivers were asylum seekers from Africa. The similarities in their stories are astonishing. Most had held high-skilled jobs before immigrating to the states. Not one driver had reunited with their family since their departure. The men who deliver groceries, ferry passengers to the airport, work at the giant e-commerce warehouses. Many had come from far away to do these often unhappy jobs so that, across the ocean, their families could continue to eat. Many try to make as much money as possible to send home to put their siblings through school and protect their children from the grueling hardships that they themselves had faced. At night go home to lonely apartments and hope their children are still awake.
For many immigrants, working with Uber has become the new normal, especially for those in metropolitan areas. The job requires little knowledge of English and no prior experience, but for many, it is their only option. To work with Instacart, a basic understanding of English is crucial. But the gig industry presents its own set of challenges. With no safety net and an income reliant on customer demand, each day is an unknown. As independent contractors, they are less likely to have health insurance coverage than those employed in traditional jobs, yet are more vulnerable to COVID-19 exposure and infection than those in non-essential industries.
Kone found a level of comfort in working with Instacart. While driving with Uber, he was always on the road. Assigned a destination at random, usually miles away from home, he lived off fast food, his lap acting as a dinner table. He hated it. Instacart’s flexibility allows him to make a delivery close to his apartment, where he often stops by for a quick bite to eat. Sometimes he takes the time to indulge in dishes that remind him at home, like jollof rice and chicken, a dish bursting with flavors of tomato and paprika.
Despite his newfound sense of freedom, he is still at the mercy of the immigration system. Every few months he sits in the waiting room of the ICE field office, listening for his name to be called.
While Instacart has kept Kone happy, like Uber, it has been sued by governments and workers in class actions, alleging unfair practices and underpaying workers. At least one suit was settled; several are pending.
Uber is a prime example of what younger apps like Instacart might look like in time. Once an extremely profitable opportunity for drivers, over the years Uber has changed its pay models and decreased incentives. Most drivers ended up making less than they did before. Uber claims to be taking a commission of 25% per ride. When interviewing Uber drivers earlier this year, I was shown numerous trip receipts in which Uber took 30–40% commissions — one driver was denied 50% of a trip’s earnings.
Earnings are not the only things at risk. Plans for autonomous technology leave many workers to fear the possibility of being replaced. Lyft has promised self-driving cars will hit the road in 2023. Amazon has already put their driverless trucks to use and has been testing delivery by drone. Even Instacart is looking into a robot-driven warehouse to fulfill orders, which could replace shoppers altogether. If New Yorkers start getting their asparagus chosen not by hand, but by robot, Kone will be out of a job with few alternatives to fall back on. There is no guarantee that his next job would provide the same flexibility that has allowed Kone the chance to earn enough to support his extended family and stay a part of his son’s life.
After five years, Kone is no longer enthusiastic at the prospect of his asylum case being heard, or even becoming an American. The process has taken too much out of him already.
Having lived in Europe, which aims to welcome asylum seekers in a dignified manner, he struggles to understand why the system in the U.S. is the way it is. A report by the Human Rights Association uncovered that the three major ICE centers used to detain non-citizens in New Jersey — Elizabeth Detention Center, Essex County Correctional Center, and Hudson County Correctional Center — left asylum seekers living in harsh, and in some cases inhumane conditions. Individuals often faced inadequacies in food and hygiene and denial of medical care. Some of these ICE facilities rent bed spaces from county jails, and the conditions are reminiscent of the “criminal correctional standards” the buildings were previously used for.
More than anything, separation from his family is what keeps him up at night. He believes that this country has failed him. “Imagine paying taxes, participating in the continuous growth of the economy and society. You don’t have the right to travel, to see your parents. When your kids don’t recognize your voice, it kills you,” he said.
Kone perpetually questions the steps he took that brought him to where he is today, going back to pinpoint what he could have done differently to lead him down a different path in life. The yearning to be reunited with his family is what he lives for, and he has given himself an ultimatum: Just one more year. If in that period his asylum case is still pending, he will return to his home country. The fate that awaits him back in the Ivory Coast is unknown; he may face jail time or even be killed for his political affiliation, but Kone is undeterred. “I need to see my wife, my family, and my kids. This is my priority.”
