Update on ZEP Case. Helen Suzman foundation have won. The ZEP continues in place until the Minister makes a new decision after a fair process.  they are granted 12 months extention from today - Minister has 12 months to correct

The German parliament has approved immigration reforms designed to attract skilled workers to the country, which is suffering from an unprecedented labour shortage.

The legislation initiated by the governing centre-left coalition of the Social Democrats, the liberal Free Democrats and the Greens on Friday garnered 388 votes while 234 lawmakers voted against it and 31 abstained.

A conservative parliamentary bloc made up of the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, voted against the legislation, arguing that it would ease entry for unskilled labourers.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party also voted against it.

The law includes a points-based system that lowers entry hurdles for work visa applicants according to their professional qualifications, age and language skills.

This year, the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) said more than half of German companies were struggling to fill vacancies due to a lack of skilled workers.

The proportion of companies facing difficulties hiring was at its highest ever level, the DIHK found in its survey of 22,000 companies. Fifty-three percent reported worker shortages.

Who let all these tourists into our lovely tourist traps? France tells its 37m visitors where to go. And you’re speaking French because …? Because this is about France.

Ooh, I’m going to France on holiday as it happens. Hardly original it is the world’s most visited country. Whereabouts?

Well, I’m starting in Paris … You and more than 37 million others that’s the projection for this year.

… To take some selfies in front of Emily’s favourite haunts. Emily?

In Paris. Ah yes, of course, the much-maligned Netflix romantic drama. That’s partly to blame. So you’ll be sipping champagne in a strapless black dress in front of the Eiffel Tower?

Yes! Before heading to the Place de l’Estrapade and the Atelier des Lumières. Are you planning on going anywhere else in the country?

I’m heading up to Normandy, to somewhere called Étretrat, which has stunning cliffs. It was in another Netflix show called Lupin, which I haven’t actually seen, but it looks cool. Hmmm.

Then obviously over to Mont-Saint-Michel, which is famous for being on Instagram. Everyone goes there … Almost literally. Did you not see the pictures of the queues the other day? There were 60,000 people in one weekend.

I didn’t. Whose pictures? The Mont-Saint-Michel tourist office’s pictures.

Oh, I don’t follow them … Hang on, the tourist office, you say? It’s almost as though they’re telling people not to come. That’s exactly what they are doing.

Why? Because of overtourism.

So there are too many of us? And all in the same places: 80% of visitors focus on just 20% of the country. France is launching a campaign, aimed at British people and other foreigners, to try to get us to travel to less visited places.

Herd the Brits to the places no one wants to go? No, it’s about protecting places and their ways of life, as well as making the experience better for visitors.

How are they going to do it? A mixture of ways. There is talk of using influencers to deter people from some sites.

“Here’s a picture of me looking sad at Mont-Saint-Michel. It’s rubbish don’t come”? Well, maybe not rubbish, but crowded. So much so that Thomas Velter of the local tourist authority is talking about putting up turnstiles.

So it will feel a bit like going to a football match? What else? They are planning to use France’s embassies and consulates to spread the word.

And spread the crowds. “Vous êtes les bienvenus, mais pas ici” (“You are welcome, but not here”)? And some sites will limit numbers and introduce booking systems.

Do say: “Next time I will mainly be visiting the Parisian suburb from La Haine, followed by a tour of the industrial cities of Lorraine. In February.”

Don’t say: “Smile. Say fromage.”

Schengen visa applicants are more frustrated than ever with the increasing rejection rates, calling out on the Schengen countries to stop “mercilessly” refusing their applications.

Sharing their experiences on Twitter, several Schengen visa applicants have complained that their applications have been rejected unfairly, listing all the difficulties they have encountered to apply, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

“I am so sad and angry. I was invited to the Google IO event that will take place in Amsterdam on June 20. We wanted to go as a family and spend five days in the Netherlands. I applied for a Dutch visa on April 25. They waited until June 7 and refused,” a Twitter user called Selin Tunc wrote on June 8.

She further explained that she had been told to appeal within four weeks, but as the date of the event she was planning to attend was approaching, she decided it was not something worth doing.

According to a thread of tweets, the reason presented by the authorities for Tunc’s visa rejection, who is the spouse of an EU national, is that she had not submitted sufficient proof that she is married to her husband, and that there was not strong enough proof that they have a child together, as claimed by the applicant.

Yet, Tunc says that she had provided a marriage certificate, and the birth certificate of the child she has with her spouse, an EU national.

“Since I learned the result yesterday, my eyes are swollen from crying,” she further wrote.

Tunc is not the only one to experience such a visa rejection. Other applicants have also shared the reasons why they applications were rejected, calling the trend of rejecting visas “mercilessly” unfair.

Meagan Teutsch, a US resident, says her husband, an Indian software engineer at Zillow in Seattle with a Green Card had his Swiss Schengen Visa rejected under claims that “information submitted regarding the justification for the purposes and conditions for the intended stay was not reliable.”

“We provided our letters of invitation, hotels, flights, and everything else so it doesn’t make sense,” she says.

2022 Schengen Visa Statistics released last month show that in the same year, Schengen Member States rejected 17.9 per cent of the 7,572,755 applications for a Schengen visa filed worldwide.

The two countries with the highest number of rejected visas this year were France, with 408,876 rejected applications and Spain, with 227,712 rejected applications. The two were also the countries with the highest number of applications received and visas granted in 2022, followed by Germany.

In the past years, the rejection rates have increased from 8.2 per cent in 2017, to 9.6 per cent in 2018, 9.9 per cent in 2020, 13.6 per cent in 2020, reaching an all-time high of 17.9 per cent in 2022.

The Chairperson of the Select Committee on Security and Justice, Ms Shahidabibi Shaik, commended Minister of Home Affairs Dr Aaron Motsoaledi’s plans, which he mentioned yesterday in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) during his department’s budget vote, to upgrade some of South Africa’s busiest border posts.

Ms Shaik said this will help improve security and ease the movement of goods and people between South Africa and its neighbours. “The issue of border management is critical for ensuring the legal movement of people and goods across our borders. We have noted the positive developments since the establishment of the BMA. We also welcome the digitalisation project, which will help cut fraud and corruption, as it will make it easier to track the original documents,” she said.

The committee Chairperson said her committee will play its oversight role to ensure that commitments and plans announced in the department’s budget vote policy are implemented. She also shared some of the committee’s recommendations for the department to consider. These include steps to curb corruption and protect whistle-blowers, as well as possible legislative changes to extend operating hours to address the challenges of long queues in Home Affairs offices. The committee also wants the department to continue inspections of the employment of undocumented foreign nationals.

Also participating in the policy debate, Mr Frederik Badenhorst of the Democratic Alliance in the NCOP was concerned about long queues, delays in processing applications for documents and the backlog in processing applications for permanent residency.

“The department is marred with corruption and bribery. Six years after Project Lokisa exposed corruption in the department’s refuge offices, we are still waiting to hear what happened to officials who make money out of keeping the problem going on,” he said.

An Economic Freedom Fighters’ permanent delegate to the NCOP, Ms Mbali Dlamini, said the EFF does not support the department’s proposed budget and accused the Minister of compromising the dignity of foreign nationals. “The Minister compromises the dignity of African nationals, in particular Zimbabweans, through the continued wavering of the Zimbabwe exemption permit, leaving Zimbabweans in the country dangling for another six months, facing challenges obtaining bank cards, driver’s licences and having to spend a lot of money on waiver applications,” Ms Dlamini said.

She said foreign nationals were scapegoated for various problems in South Africa, such as crime, unemployment and the lack of medical services. “Refuges and asylum seekers are facing difficulty accessing their rights due to the department’s failure to provide efficient immigration services. Home Affairs is also contributing to the overcrowding in our prisons by failing to process immigrant offenders who are due for deportation,” she said.

Mr Michiel de Bruyn from the Freedom Front Plus accused the department of failing in its mandate, especially on the management of the country’s borders. “The department has effectively failed to manage migration, unable to track undocumented immigrants and persons whose documents have expired, resulting in a number of negative consequences for the country such as crime, unemployment and strain on our social services,” he said.

Mr de Bruyn called on the department to take a proactive approach to strengthen border control and ensure only those who meet South Africa’s immigration criteria are allowed to enter the country