Headline, September 18 2026/ OPINION : ''' THE AMERICAN DREAM '''

OPINION :

''' THE AMERICAN DREAM '''

I WAS ONCE CONSIDERED THE AMERICAN DREAM : THE US has closed its doors to too many students and entrepreneurs.

I was 17 when the University of North western-St. Paul offered me a scholarship in 2010.

When I was 21, Stanford's M.B.A. program did the same. From there I went on to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where I learned how financial technology could change millions of lives.

In the years after I finished my degrees, I started a financial-technology company in Palo-Alto, Calif, backed by American investors that now serves more than 500,000 customers in the United States.

But these days, I'm running my American company from abroad : That same company that invested in me won't let me, or thousand others like me, return to the United States. With rare exceptions, Tanzanian nationals like myself are barred from entry.

The company I founded, NALA, helps immigrants and businesses in the United States, Britain and Europe send money across borders to build businesses and keep their families afloat.

I have met customers who use our service to pay a parent's hospital bill or a cousin's school fees, or to keep a small business open across continents. Over the past four years, we have raised more than $60 million from American venture firms, including Y Combinator, Accel and Bessemer.

Forbes twice ranked us among the world's top 50 fintech companies. Our investors and board members are American. I set out on a mission to use software to make this better and cheaper for people in emerging markets.

NALA pays U.S. taxes. Nearly every consequential decision about the company's future, every board meeting, every fund-raising event, every bet on where we go next, is made on American soil.

That is why what is happening now is so hard to reconcile.

On Jan 1, a presidential proclamation went into effect, adding Tanzania to a group of 24 countries facing new entry restrictions.

The United States stopped issuing the business-visitor visa I relied on, as well as students and exchange visas and other visa types, to these countries. The visa allowed founders like me to fly in to the United States for meetings with investors, customers and partners, and to sit in the boardroom.

After the proclamation, anyone with a valid visa could use it until it expired, but it cannot be reviewed, and no new one will be issued. Mine rain out on July 10.

The education I received in America turned a Tanzanian teenager into the founder of a company that answers to American investors. Then the government closed its door to me.

I have never broken any laws in the United States, or elsewhere. I did not enter the country illegally. I pose no security risk. I have been shut out of the country simply because of the passport I carry.

The U.S. government's stated rationale is a statistic. Tanzanians overstay business and tourist visas at relatively higher rates than people from some other countries.

But a static is not a person. A blanket ban punishes those who follow the rules just as harshly as it does those who do not. I have crossed the U.S. border for 17 years in a row now.

I have always left exactly when I said I would.

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