Holding an Ethiopian passport feels like volunteering to tame a series of feral cats, bringing an endless stream of havoc and uncertainty into one’s life. For years, I resisted being called an immigrant in the U.S. or Europe. As a student in the US, I was often struck by how frequently I was casually labeled as the "obvious" immigrant in various situations. Perhaps because I had lived in other countries before where I was not considered an immigrant, it always rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't have a problem with being an immigrant, I just wasn't one! I thought of myself as a visitor and my student visa said so; however, with my skin color, the assumption in the U.S. was that I would of course eventually try to obtain permanent residency, followed by naturalization.
And I did, to some extent. I lived there long enough that I eventually did get permanent residency through work. But for me, that signaled the time had come to venture back to the "old" world to see if I could pursue old dreams. My last stint in the US was NYC. It wasn’t like I had grown up wanting to live there, though it was nice. Once I got there though, what was one to do? First I figured I should live in Manhattan, specifically within a walking distance from work, and ideally in a building with a doorman, in midtown. Then followed dinners at trendy or quirky restaurants and bars, summers in Central Park, then the Hampton. What next? Inching to the Upper West Side? Following the "hip" to Brooklyn? Or relocating to the West? While all these sounded nice in books I could read, I did not need them to be in my life. At some point, I realized I was doing things to see if I could, because others wanted them or did them. I figured, if I made my life outside the U.S. just as well as I could dream to live in the U.S., that would be my dream. The American Dream could just be a "Human Dream," as it should be! Honestly, I also just didn’t see myself as an American, even pre-MAGA America. Remember, I was visiting.
So I left. Seven years later, I walked into an American embassy to officially relinquish my Green Card. I didn’t mind having it, but I disliked the tax burden and the need to periodically return to the U.S. to show an “intent” to live there. At the embassy, I got the sense that was not a regular activity because the staff were a bit unsure of who should assist me. Once I got in, though, the process was “American” efficient: simple, chill, and no questions asked. I received a small slip of paper, which I was told to keep for any future visa applications as it would simplify the process. Of course, I subsequently lost track of it.
There was one hidden benefit of American permanent residency that I underestimated and relinquished that day: I lost the ability to prove to the world that I could live in the U.S. but just happened not to be living there. If you hold a weak passport, the ability to prove you can go to the U.S. (i.e., via a U.S. visa or permanent residency) makes a significant difference in obtaining visas to most other countries. I was headed for trouble.
The Menace of An Ethiopian Passport
The Ethiopian passport is a terrible travel document, to obtain and to use. It prevents more than it assists Ethiopians in travel in every possible way one can imagine. In my recent application to renew my Ethiopian passport, it was delayed by five months. The renewed passport's issue date reflected my submission date, resulting in me receiving a passport with 4.5 years of validity. Perhaps this is a "minor" issue for the folks at the Ethiopian Immigration and Nationality Services office, but for me, it’s a grave concern to lose a whole six months of travel time in a passport. In reality, it is about a full year lost because I can only apply for a renewal for a passport within six months before expiration (if I stick by the rules, which I do). Then there is also a six-month period before the end of my passport where I cannot use my old passport (since one needs 6months+ of a valid passport to apply for most visas). Depending on how I time it, for six months to a year near the expiration date of my passport, I’m grounded. For someone who needs to travel for work, a year of grounding every 5 years is simply untenable.
I was fortunate that my case, I was only delayed for five months. My case, I was told, was prioritized because I was living abroad; many others who live in Ethiopia struggle to obtain passports at all.
Bad Policy, Ample Repercussions
Ethiopian passports are valid for a maximum of five years. Why, you may ask? Given the complexity of the renewal process, why not extend the validity to ten or even fifteen years as most other passports? It seems nonsensical to force citizens to discard passports with unused pages while simultaneously delaying the issuance of new passports due to a literal shortage of materials.
A few years ago, the Ethiopian passport ranked just above North Korea. My friends used to joke that this was because Ethiopia had a hidden arsenal of nuclear weapons that the world was yet to discover. Now, we are ranked 74th out of 84 countries. Still terrible, though marginally ahead of North Korea. This weak passport leaves every Ethiopian citizen with a short term (~4.5 yrs) validity passport navigating a world of complex visa applications that can take weeks or even months of our lives.
If we manage to obtain a visa, the duration is often limited to the passport's validity. While countries like the U.S. and EU offer longer visas (5–10 years) to those demonstrating some level of proof that they are not interested in absconding, with an Ethiopian passport, we are restricted to a 4.5-year maximum of long term visas.This puts us on a never-ending hamster-wheel of visas requests, passport expirations, to be followed by more visa requests on blank new passports. It's impossible to prove a long term context of being globally mobile.
So, one foolish policy of keeping our passport validity over a short period creates a series of disastrous repercussions: passport material shortages, renewal queues & delays, reduced visa duration, grounding citizens, an increased frequency of visa requests and inevitably visa rejections, etc. Why??? ይሄን ሁሉ ፍዳ ለምን? አንድ የሚያስብ ሰው ኢሚግሬሽን ዉስጥ የለም?
Rejection and Its Aftermath
Recently, I received my first ever visa rejection, delivered from the Australian embassy, shocking both me, my friends ('westerners', including those hailing from the east and closer to the south pole, who think their countries only reject "troubled" people, ha ha!) and my EU-born husband. According to the Australian embassy's convoluted official feedback, they were concerned about my potential intent to stay in Australia indefinitely. My confused European husband asked, "Are you supposed to stay in Australia illegally with me, or are they assuming that you leaving me to run off to Australia?" Australian friends who couldn’t believe I was denied a visa asked their contacts in the relevant government bodies how a profile like mine could be rejected. The off-the-record response was that applications from Ethiopian citizens are typically directed for automatic rejections unless there is proof of an exceptional reason or condition for needing to travel to Australia. For instance, being officially invited to a conference where the Australian government would like to be associated with hosting an “international” event could be a worthy reason to allow Ethiopians into Australia. But tourism, or attending weddings of friends in Australia, for Ethiopians? What a joke. Those are grounds for automatic rejection. Two separate contacts in the Australian government corroborated that this is indeed the process.
While I sincerely try to sympathize on this issue with Australian visa officials and policy makers, the problem with blanket rejection outcome is that it creates a negative feedback cycle. People like me are incentivized to travel under non-Ethiopian passports. So while hundreds of thousands of globally mobile "Ethiopian born" individuals exist and travel, they will often only appear under other passports because for decades they've been pushed to relinquish their Ethiopian passports. Ethiopia has entered a negative cycle where we can never increase the number of Ethiopians who will respectfully enter and leave countries like Australia.
I probably will never set foot in Australia for the rest of my life. While I don’t think Australia was ever my dream destination, the annoyance from the rejection will likely last me a lifetime. The real issue is not this one missed trip but rather the long-term implications of this one rejection on my life. Most visa applications often ask if the applicant has ever been rejected for a visa from any other country. Answering "yes" raises red flags for various future visa applications. One haphazard Australian visa rejection now taints most, if not all, my future visa applications to any country indefinitely.
This blows my mind!
The Limits of My World ... Is My Passport
During some university class discussion in Europe, I once came across a Ludwig Wittgenstein's quote: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” This idea has lingered with me, as it carries profound implications for how we engage with various subjects in life. It makes for a good chat on theory over coffee. But if we're going to be real about the practical African experience, the limits of my world is simply my passport.
Which brings me to my second grievance with Ethiopian policymakers: Ethiopia does not allow dual citizenship. Of course, it's easy to maintain two passports as an Ethiopian if you have any ill will, or don't care for regulations -- so this policy does not prevent bad actors from holding dual citizenship. The problem is for Ethiopians like me who want to remain Ethiopian legally, but may want to compensate for the weaknesses of the Ethiopian passport if we have the need or the option. Or it is for my kids, who legitimately come from two cultural backgrounds. Ethiopia could benefit from keeping us all Ethiopians. Alas, our policies are often optimized for the few and the worst, rather than the good and the many.
So when we see ሃበሻ on the global stage, Ethiopia pushes them to be "Ethiopian born" rather than simply Ethiopian.
ኧረ እባካችሁ!
Reflections on Defeat
I find it almost physically painful to consider giving up my Ethiopian citizenship. It’s not that I love everything that is happening in or about Ethiopia. I find myself quite critical of Ethiopia, our culture, our people, and of course the government. But none of those are reason not to be Ethiopian. I also obviously don’t feel that at this point in my life Ethiopia is the place to offer me the best of opportunities, hence why I don't live there. These days, as I begin think of the Ethiopian citizenship in its current format as a burden to my children—mostly due to badly crafted Ethiopian policies —I really begin to wonder what I am doing with my time and life and this passport. I find it increasingly difficult to survive, let alone thrive, in a global context if I remain Ethiopian.
After the Australian visa rejection and a subsequent European visa delay last summer due to the complications of having an Ethiopian passport, I have started to reevaluate my ability to manage the complexities of life with my current citizenship. For the last 30 years, I’ve lived on four continents, visited five, and traveled to over 30 countries. I don’t think I have it in me to endure another 30 years of ~8 Ethiopian passport renewals and delays, filling out another 30 or more visa application forms, preparing thick dossiers to justify that I'm "just visiting" countries, to only receive automatic rejections. I'm limiting my, and by extension my family’s, ability to make the most of the world.
Maybe I had hoped that Ethiopia would keep pace with the world and globalization. Perhaps, I imagined that like many African countries, we would eventually allow dual citizenship. But we seem to be stuck in time, choosing to exist in a secluded world where we envision living and dying in isolation. I can't even begin to imagine how this passport is limiting Ethiopians in Ethiopia, if I can't endure living with it with my global USD bank accounts and companies with global track records backing me!
I recently filled out a Shengen Visa application for people married to EU citizens. It asked me if I can prove that my spouse can financially support me. For real, Europe?! No, honestly, I would struggle to. You know why? Because it is a whole lot easier to prove that I can support my spouse.
I acknowledge that much of my discussion has focused on what Ethiopia and its policymakers can do to improve the experience for Ethiopians holding Ethiopian passports. I have deliberately refrained from addressing the broader systemic issues—conditions that, while not African constructs, are still inhumane, unjust, biased, and racist, etc. These factors significantly hinder the ability of those with Ethiopian passports to gain even a basic level of consideration and respect on the global stage.
For years, I grappled with why being labeled an immigrant felt so uncomfortable. I have family members who are flourishing as immigrants in the U.S., yet after returning to Africa and living here for over a decade with an African passport, I’ve witnessed how global systems have systematically eroded my will and spirit to navigate the world with an African passport. It has become clear to me that society is structured in such a way that the pinnacle of African existence and experience is often marked by the acquisition of a Western passport. And this is the source of my discomfort: the implicit expectation that, if the right circumstances arise, Africans will/should inevitably evolve into immigrants.
Consider this: in 2024, I am an African contemplating obtaining a European passport while still living in Africa, simply to access the world more easily for my day-to-day work and family life. How absurd is that? I recently learned that a top Nigerian executive leading a major pan-African institution resolved his mobility challenges for business operations by obtaining an EU passport from Malta through investments. If someone overseeing nine- to ten-digit US revenues can’t operate in Africa with an African passport, then who can?
The West will continue to create systems that favor its citizens. If Africa is to change the way Africans are treated both on the continent and beyond, we must focus on what is within our control. This includes fostering friendships with friendly countries, simplifying our systems and documentation, and providing citizens with greater flexibility and options that may or may not include the West. The world is a big oyster.
I haven’t yet shared my thoughts with my husband, who will be relieved to hear that I'm contemplating giving up this "godforsaken" passport that has brought him enough grief over the past decade.
I need some moments to mourn this decision.
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p.s. If anybody who gives a damn at all from the Ethiopian government, capable of changing policy, ever reads this, consider changing 3-4 things:
1. Increase the validity of the Ethiopian passport to 10 years, like most other countries, or maybe even 15 years, to compensate for the fact that we have a weak (and that's a fact!) passport.
2. Increase the number of pages per passport (even if at a fee) -- let people retain their history of travel. If a visa application gets to a point where a passport is presented, a passport full of past visas speaks a whole lot more volume than a blank new one.
3. Propose dual citizenship. Those who give up the Ethiopian citizenship are only those who abide by the law, which are the ones you should care to keep.
4. As a bonus, get as many bilateral travel agreements to as many "friendly" countries as possible. I was recently floored to find I could travel to Thailand with a visa on arrival. After the Australian visa debacle, we cancelled all our reservations and redirected our flights to Thailand. What a consolation prize. One third the price, triple the value! 🇹🇭🫶