The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, has today gazetted a second invitation for applications to the highly successful Trusted Tour Operator Scheme (TTOS). Since the first tourist visa applications from China and India were processed through this scheme on 12 February 2025, the Department has been inundated with requests to expand it so that more tour operators can contribute to driving tourism growth.

The Department is encouraged by this overwhelmingly positive response, as it confirms the enormous potential our visa reforms hold to create more jobs by bringing more tourists to our shores. In response to these calls, and after effecting additional upgrades to the online platform that processes TTOS applications, Minister Schreiber has today opened a second window for more tour operators to apply to join the scheme.

Tour operators that want to apply have 30 days to submit their applications through the dedicated online portal accessible via the Department’s website. No paper-based applications will be accepted. As with the first intake, applications will be assessed by
an interdepartmental team using Artificial Intelligence tools to vet and select successful participants.

Minister Schreiber said: “The key to the success of TTOS lies in the fact that the process has been digitally transformed from start to end. Whereas prospective tourists from China and India previously had to stand in long queues, submit paper applications, and sometimes wait so long for paper outcomes that they missed their flights, the digitalisation of this process through TTOS means that even visa outcomes for large groups are now issued digitally within hours.”

Minister Schreiber concluded: “In the weeks since TTOS was launched, over 2 000 additional tourists from China and India, who would otherwise not have come to our country owing to previous visa inefficiencies, have come to our country. Even more encouraging is the trend of applications received. On the first day of operation, 12 February, 21 applications were received. Yesterday, 3 April, this figure had grown to 165 per day and shows no sign of slowing down. The intake of more operators will further accelerate this growth as Home Affairs delivers on our commitment to replace a manual, paper-based and insecure visa system with secure, world-class digital infrastructure to drive economic growth.”

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The partnership will see home affairs leveraging the digital capabilities built by the taxman.

Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter
The department of home affairs, the Border Management Authority (BMA) and the Government Printing Works have inked a “digital transformation” pact with the South African Revenue Service to improve government services.

The agreement reflects a “whole-of-government” approach aimed at breaking down silos and putting the “needs of the people first”, home affairs said last week.
“It is difficult to overstate the significance of what we have jointly achieved with today’s adoption of this historic agreement. Sars is a world-class institution that must never be taken for granted, and I want to thank the commissioner (Edward Kieswetter) and his team for their visionary commitment to breaking down silos in the interests of South Africa,” home affairs minister Leon Schreiber said in a statement.
New services

The minister said the services ecosystem – made up of the three entities party to the agreement with the tax agency – “will leverage the world-class technology capacity within Sars to revolutionise all civic and immigration services”. The services citizens can expect to be rolled out include:
• The launch of an electronic travel authorisation system to digitalise and automate immigration procedures to eliminate inefficiency and fraud;
• The integration of home affairs services with banking platforms to expand access to smart ID and passport services to “hundreds of bank branches” as well as to banking apps;
• The creation of an option to select secure courier delivery of documents that eliminates the requirement to collect documents at home affairs’ offices;
• The upgrading of the movement control system at all ports of entry; and
• The introduction of smart IDs for naturalised citizens and permanent residents.

Home affairs said the roll-out of these services is its main priority for the next 12 months. Following that, more digital services will be introduced.
However, these developments come amid a heated battle between government of national unity (GNU) partners the ANC and the Democratic Alliance over a 0.5 percentage point VAT hike in the proposed national budget. With the matter now possibly headed to court, the future of the coalition is now on shaky ground. The impasse raises questions about the future role of DA ministers like Schreiber in the cabinet.
Speaking in a recent radio interview on 702, Sars commissioner Kieswetter said the organisation’s digital capabilities have been key to improved revenue collection by Sars.

Home affairs minister Leon Schreiber
He said administrative efficiency has resulted from its use of data science, artificial intelligence and “the hard work of our people deploying their technical skill”. He added that the organisation has room to improve and that modernising Sars, to make it more efficent and effective, will ultimately “secure the fiscal integrity of our country”, he said.
“Sars is an inspiration for the future we want at home affairs. Now we are not only in a position to follow the same digital transformation path they have already taken, but to witness Sars and the home affairs ecosystem work together to redefine and revolutionise the quality of government services…,” said Schreiber in the statement.

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Drones with night-vision cameras and bodycams are joining government's fight to shore up South Africa’s ports of entry.
The Border Management Authority (BMA) has launched four new unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, to assist ground teams with curbing the illegal entry of undocumented foreigners into South Africa.
According to home affairs minister Leon Schreiber, who spoke at a launch event in Pretoria on Tuesday, the project follows a December 2024 pilot conducted in partnership with the department of agriculture, land reform & rural development. Data gathered from the pilot informed the BMA’s decision to invest in a full-fledged drone programme.

“What we saw was a 215% increase in the number of attempted illegal crossings by undocumented persons that were prevented. We even were able to showcase thousands of instances where the use of these drones actually led to apprehensions directly,” said Schreiber.

As we roll out more and more cutting-edge technology, there are fewer and fewer places to hide for criminals
Added to the aerial capability introduced by the drones, BMA ground teams will also wear body-worn cameras to aid in their duties. According to Schreiber, 40 bodycams have been launched alongside the four drones.

“The drones are equipped with some of the most advanced night vision cameras in the world, including thermal detection technology. They are powered by artificial intelligence, allowing the devices to recognise and lock onto heat sources, moving people or vehicles. They can travel at speeds of up to 43km/h and are capable of operating in remote rural areas, without access to GPS, and even underground,” said Schreiber.
Digitisation efforts at the home affairs department are moving at a rapid pace. Last month, Schreiber announced “comprehensive upgrades” to the Automated Biometric Identity System (Abis), the system banks, insurance companies and government departments use to verify identity when providing services to citizens.

Digitisation
The move is part of a broader government systems overhaul, announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in his state of the nation address in February, which aims to provide citizens with access to government services “at a touch”. Ramaphosa said the home affairs department is central to government’s digitisation drive, with initiatives like a planned digital ID system “at the heart” of an improved, digitised government service.

As part of this initiative, home affairs – along with the BMA and Government Printing Works, last week signed a pact with Sars. Sars has improved its revenue collection through investments in data science and artificial intelligence tools. Schrieber said home affairs will leverage these capabilities to bring proposed new digital services to life. These include:
• The launch of an electronic travel authorisation system to digitalise and automate immigration procedures to eliminate inefficiency and fraud;
• The integration of home affairs services with banking platforms to expand access to smart ID and passport services to “hundreds of bank branches” as well as to banking apps;
• The creation of an option to select secure courier delivery of documents that eliminates the requirement to collect documents at home affairs’ offices;
• The upgrading of the movement control system at all ports of entry; and
• The introduction of smart IDs for naturalised citizens and permanent residents.

Speaking at the drone launch on Thursday, Schrieber reiterated the importance of digitisation to improving service delivery in South Africa and emphasised his department’s commitment to digitising its operations, too.

“Our message to would-be illegal immigrants and smugglers is clear: for the first time ever, we are now watching the border during the day, we are watching at night, we can see your body heat wherever you try to hide, and we will catch you. As we roll out more and more cutting-edge technology, there are fewer and fewer places to hide for criminals who undermine our national security,” said Schreiber.

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The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, today officially opened a new state-of-the-art office located in Tygervalley Shopping Centre in Bellville, Cape Town.
Like the Mitchells Plain office that the Minister opened on Saturday, the new Tygervalley office features upgraded technology that integrates a camera at the counter, eliminating the need to queue for photos. This new office will also only accept prior bookings, ensuring that there are no queues. The office served its first clients in the presence of the Minister this morning.
Minister Schreiber said: “We are guided by our vision to deliver Home Affairs @ home. This means that we are gradually bringing services closer to the people, including through our presence in malls. This process will eventually culminate with Home Affairs services also being offered in many more bank branches, and through online devices.”
Minister Schreiber concluded: “The people of Bellville and surrounds will now experience the meaning of our commitment to deliver dignity for all. Every day, we are making progress, together.”

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The inconvenient truth is that none of SA’s economic woes can be pinned on immigrants, documented or not.
When in doubt, blame the foreigners. It worked for Donald Trump in his successful bid for the US presidency, and it’s working just fine for SA politicians eager to distract from their own failures.

All you need to do is take a struggling economy, throw in a few national identity crises, add in some populist grandstanding, and you’ve got yourself a fine scapegoat. Immigrants, especially the undocumented ones, are now the plug-in explanation for everything from unemployment to crumbling infrastructure and failing healthcare.

Across the Atlantic Trump and his disciples mastered this craft. “Build the wall!” became more than a slogan — it’s a movement, a rallying cry for what Hillary Clinton called “a basket of deplorables”, convinced that America’s problems could be solved by keeping out desperate people fleeing worse situations.
Now, executive orders flow freely. The latest masterpiece? Trying to scrap birthright citizenship, because nothing says “land of the free” like rewriting the constitution to banish babies from the “home of the brave”.

The result? An America where immigrants — especially those who happen to have the wrong skin tone — are automatically assumed to be criminals and freeloaders. That the economy depends on immigrant labour? Irrelevant. That most violent crime is committed by native-born citizens? Inconvenient.
SA politicians have not been tardy in taking a page from the global populist playbook. The scapegoat of choice isn’t just any immigrant — it’s the “illegal” foreigner, the faceless menace allegedly plundering resources and stealing jobs.

This brings us to the saga of illegal mining, the latest excuse for a xenophobic free-for-all. In the abandoned shafts of mining ghost towns in the North West province we had thousands of miners — most of them undocumented immigrants — trapped underground, starving and, according to reports, resorting to cannibalism.
What did our esteemed leadership propose? Sending help? Rescue? Involve the community? Of course not. Minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni demanded that they be “smoked out.” Because nothing screams good governance like leaving desperate people to die in a hole.

Meanwhile, mineral & petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe, never one to let a populist opportunity go to waste, labelled the miners “economic saboteurs”. A curious accusation considering the real economic sabotage has been happening in boardrooms and government contracts for decades. But why confront systemic failure when you can blame foreigners?

Nothing new here; remember Idi Amin? Distract the public with an “enemy” while dodging accountability. The more dire the crisis — crime, poverty, unemployment — the louder the anti-immigrant rhetoric. The inconvenient truth is that none of SA’s economic woes can be pinned on immigrants, documented or not. The housing crisis? A result of decades of poor planning and corruption. The unemployment rate? A casualty of economic mismanagement. Crumbling infrastructure? A direct consequence of looting on a grand scale.

But pointing fingers at immigrants is easier than admitting failure. It’s also more effective. People love a simple narrative, and “foreigners are the problem” is far easier to digest than “we’ve systematically mismanaged the country for years”.
If you thought this was just an SA or American problem, think again. Ask Elon Musk, whose platform, X (known as Twitter before he had a branding epiphany) has become a global breeding ground for misinformation and hysteria masquerading as “free speech”. Whether it’s election fraud conspiracies, transphobic tirades or good, old-fashioned immigrant bashing. Musk’s free speech crusade has turned his social media empire into a safe space for the world’s most unhinged ideas.

But back at the ranch, sitting on sofas stuffed with dollars, President Cyril Ramaphosa might ask himself at what point democracy becomes a hollow shell of itself. When a government scapegoats its most vulnerable instead of protecting them? When populist fearmongering replaces fact-based policy? When leaders openly dismiss humanitarian crises because they involve the “wrong” kind of people?
When profit trumps the struggles of ordinary folk, I remember Marikana.

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