An immigration law expert says that the number of visa applications blocked due to inefficiencies at Home Affairs is likely worse than the department lets on and added it has little intention of addressing the issue because of bureaucratic attitudes towards foreigners.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi noted in a recent parliamentary Q&A that the backlog in temporary residency visas remained at over 74,309 unchanged from the department’s last report at the end of October 2023 adding that an additional backlog of 43,944 in permanent residency permits also remains.

South Africa has long been facing a significant skills shortage, and businesses have been struggling to attract much-needed skills to the country, with their efforts having been hindered by the failures at Home Affairs.

Companies have reported that visa applications can take up to 48 weeks to be accepted, which poses a threat to expansion plans, investment, and job creation in a country with a 33% unemployment rate.

A point of how bad the backlog is, a report prepared for the presidency noted that between 2014 and 2021, only 25,298 skilled work permit visas were approved.

Speaking to Newzroom Afrika, immigration lawyer Gary Eisenberg said that the backlog crisis is probably much worse and that the numbers provided by the department are somewhat misleading.

“It’s unclear whether the numbers given by the department include application appeals and those under review, and that number is likely far higher than the 74,000,” said Eisenberg.

“Even if some foreigners with the means are able to get a court order to force the minister to make a decision on their applications, many of those orders are being ignored,” he noted.

Eisenberg added that skilled foreign professionals who are needed to fill the gaps on the critical skills list are simply walking away. “They cannot wait a year for a visa or spousal visa, so they are going elsewhere.”

He also noted that the department has little intention to fix the issues, and this is being of bureaucratic attitudes towards foreigners. “If a foreigner doesn’t want to sit and wait, then it’s fine; they must go. That’s the attitude we’re sitting with at Home Affairs,” he said.

Eisenberg also notes that he has little faith that the department will fix it anytime soon or even have the will to address the issues. 

Potential evidence of this is the fact that in a parliamentary Q&A near the end of November, Motsoaledi noted that the time frame to fix the backlog has been pushed back to November 2024 from June 2024.

Eisenberg also added that his partners have been Home Affairs officials, and the issue has been part of all the work he’s done in his professional career. 

“I have seen the department explain to the public repeatedly over the past 25 years that they are in the process of improvement spending millions on turnaround projects in the process and the department has done very little if anything,” he said. 

Despite Eisenberg’s comments, there seems to be some movement by the department to address the visa crisis in South Africa.

Recently, the minister signed planned changes to work permit regulations aimed at fixing a bureaucratic morass that’s frustrating the country’s biggest investors and exacerbating a skills crisis, people familiar with the situation said.

The changes may include a range of measures suggested by a government study, including the creation of a remote worker visa category.

South Africa’s home affairs minister signed planned changes to work permit regulations aimed at fixing a bureaucratic morass that’s frustrating the country’s biggest investors and exacerbating a skills crisis, people familiar with the situation said.

Now that the changes have been signed by Aaron Motsoaledi, they’ll be gazetted in the coming days and released for public comment, the people said, asking not to be identified as the decision hasn’t been made public. The changes may include a range of measures suggested by a government study, including the creation of a remote worker visa category.

Companies operating in South Africa struggle to find skilled workers, a result of a dysfunctional education system and exacerbated by emigration. That, they said, is hindering growth.

Still, between 2014 and 2021, only 25,298 skilled work permit visas were approved, according to a report prepared for the presidency. 

More than half of the applications were rejected on grounds including errors in the complex application process and the inability of the Home Affairs Department to process them.

The department didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Industry bodies, including the Southern African-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents owners of factories in the country, such as Volkswagen and BMW, have warned the skills shortage may halt their members’ expansion plans and threaten 100,000 jobs.

A chamber representing European Union companies operating in South Africa collated complaints that showed that some companies are considering moving their African headquarters to other countries on the continent because of their frustration.

Eight recommendations in the study, which was released by the presidency in April, include a points-based system, where applicants who meet a minimum education and salary level would be granted work permits. It’s unclear whether all or some of them will be included in the changes.

While processing a work visa in South Africa can take 48 weeks or more, the process in Kenya is a maximum of 12 weeks and just eight weeks in Nigeria, the authors of the report wrote.

Thirty days will be allowed for public comment before the changes can be passed into law.

The centre was the applicant in the case which took aim at sections of the Act, which provided that an asylum seeker was automatically deemed to have abandoned their asylum application if they did not renew their visa within one month of its expiry. 

In the unanimous ruling handed down on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court categorised refugees as an `especially vulnerable group`, adding that `their plight calls for compassion`. 

JOHANNESBURG - The Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town has welcomed a Constitutional Court ruling setting aside sections of the Refugees Act stating that it’s going to make a marked difference in the lives of those fleeing persecution.

The centre was the applicant in the case which took aim at sections of Act, which provided that an asylum seeker was automatically deemed to have abandoned their asylum application if they did not renew their visa within one month of its expiry.

In February, the Western Cape High Court ruled in Scalabrini’s favour, and on Tuesday, so too did the Constitutional Court.

The centre’s head of advocacy and legal advisor James Chapman said: `It’s going to be very, very impactful, very meaningful, because in 2020 when the amendment came out, it meant an asylum seeker who had been struggling with the backlogs and challenges of accessing asylum was routinely cut out of the asylum process, and subjected to arrest, detention, deportation and being returned to a persecutory environment`. 

`So, now they have the solace, they have the protection that they`re not going to face being returned to their country where they wouldn`t be safe, where their life, liberty, fundamental human rights would be at risk,` he added.

LANDMARK JUDGEMENT

In the unanimous ruling handed down on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court categorised refugees as an “especially vulnerable group”, adding that “their plight calls for compassion”.

And it found the sections in question were “directly at odds” with this approach, as well as with the principle of ‘non-refoulement’, which provides that refugees or asylum seekers should not be made to go back to a country where they’re liable to be subjected to persecution.

It also found these sections “fly in the face” of the Refugees Act’s own provisions barring the return of individuals to countries where they’re under threat, as well as that they “infringe the right to dignity, unjustifiably limit the rights of children and are irrational and arbitrary”.

The Department of Home Affairs was ordered to pay costs in the matter.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, welcomes the arrest of an Indian and a Bangladeshi national who were found in possession of fraudulent visas during a law enforcement operation in the Western Cape.

The pair was arrested at the Eersterivier Shopping Complex, in Eersterivier, in the Western Cape, on Thursday morning, 07 December 2023, during an operation conducted by Home Affairs Counter Corruption Branch and the Inspectorate. They are detained at the Kleinvlei Police Station and are scheduled to appear in the Kleinvlei Magistrate Court on Monday.

On the same day, in another routine operation at the Cape Town International Airport, the same team of Home Affairs Counter Corruption Branch and Inspectorate intercepted eleven (11) Bangladeshi nationals and three (03) Pakistani nationals. After interviews, five (05) Bangladeshi nationals and three (03) Pakistani nationals were refused entry into South Africa as they were in possession of fraudulent visas. 

“The Counter Corruption Branch is working tirelessly to crack the networks behind the issuance of these fraudulent visas and from time to time conducts targeted law enforcement operations. The commemoration of International Anti-Corruption Day has strengthened our resolve to root out corruption wherever it rears its ugly head”, says Minister Motsoaledi.

As we enter what is meant to be a jolly and peaceful season, during which we should focus on giving and being forgiving, I will try not to spoil it for everyone, including myself, by dedicating my festive season columns to the ill informed, pig-headed, arrogant know-it-alls whose job descriptions include the words “addressing homelessness”, at City and provincial level.

We all need a break from having to deal with situations where a provincial department, without any discussion or consultation, for a third time in three years changes its mind on what to do with the funds it has been allocated and accumulated since its 2021 decision to fund its first new (since 1994) and much-needed mega shelter and service centre for those living on the streets of the CBD in Cape Town.

Last year, they changed their minds about the location and focus of the “new shelter”, whose budget had exploded by R13 million and now, a year later, we are informed all the money (now close on R20m) is going to be wasted on extending shelters that those living on the streets refuse to go to and which have proved ineffective in reducing the numbers of people living on the streets.

And no one says a word. No demands for explanations. No shocked “how dare you!” No demand for investigations into such a unilateral, ill-informed mismanagement of a crucial mandate. Nothing!

But, this also being known as the “silly season”, I will park that there for now. I am hoping I will soon be told it was all just a silly joke! (Ha! Ha!, or should I say “Ho! Ho!”?)

I am, however, going to celebrate another state organ that is, without a doubt, considered the worst state department to deal with. Truth be told, I don’t think I have seen a positive story about it all year. Yep, you guessed it, Home Affairs.

I, of all people, am not only going to change that, but I am trying with gratitude, sincerity and admiration.

Before launching a campaign on World Homeless Day to get people living on the streets their IDs, I approached the department’s minister, with a request for assistance �` a 50% reduction of the cost of re-issuing IDs to the many South African citizens who our Everybody Counts assessments have found to be living on our streets and who have no form of identification.

The response was immediately positive.

We eventually had so many on our list, that covering the other 50% became an impossible task. We went back and spent the best part of two months nagging the department heads and director-general to waive the cost, as they do for the youth and elderly. At least for the duration of our count and assessments.

Earlier this week, on opening my Gmail account to check my emails, my eyes saw the words “has been approved”.

With the amount of spam I receive, I didn’t want to get too excited, but on closer inspection, there it was. In black and white.

And this coming week tomorrow and on Thursday and Friday, we will be doing free IDs for those living on the streets, in front of the wonderful Service Dining Room, which has partnered with me on the venture.

From the minister’s office, who delegated it as a “matter of urgency”, to the staff I had the pleasure of engaging with at the provincial office and the co-ordinator assisting us, I have experienced nothing but the best and friendliest of service.

Every department head voted in favour of doing this in their recommendation to the director-general.

I want them all to know how well this reflects on them and the department.

I publicly applaud you all.

I know from experience, that with an ID in hand or safely stored with us while we are living on the streets, should they wish to use the added service we have arranged for them, a large number of the beneficiaries will progress off the streets a lot more swiftly and on their own steam, than would otherwise be the case.

Thank you to all who have been instrumental in helping the unfortunate people living on our streets to rightfully reclaim their identity and dignity.

A special thanks to the Department of Home Affairs, The Service Dining Room, The Cape Argus, the SAPS, the Good Party and everyone at Outsider.

Have a great week, everyone!