Reconnection: For immigrant and diaspora communities especially, the World Cup is deeper than sport. It is reunion, memory, identity, homesickness, pride and belonging compressed into 90 minutes. Photo: Flickr
Last week, my fiancée was denied a visa to the US under the pretext that she is a “threat to the national interests of the United States of America”. She is not a terrorist. She is not a fraudster, a larcenist or a human trafficker. She is not violent and carries no hate in her heart.
She is not planning to disappear into the shadows of America to become a nuisance lurking in the corners of the welfare system. She is a telecoms consultant who has no interest in ever living in America but loves spending her money in outlet stores like the one in Deer Park, Long Island, near my mother’s house.
Her crime? She is from Zimbabwe.
In June 2025, President Donald Trump issued a presidential proclamation tied to Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act banning citizens of 19 countries from entering the US. Zimbabwe was not among them but in December he added 20 more countries, including hers.
