Only an immigration officer may arrest a person deemed an illegal foreigner The process of deporting illegal foreigners in SA is governed by the Immigration Act, which empowers the home affairs department to arrest, detain and deport people who are not entitled to stay in the country. In a reply to a parliamentary question, home affairs minister Leon Schreiber said the department spent close to R53m between April and August to deport 19,750 illegal foreigners.The Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town, a nonprofit organisation which helps migrant communities and displaced people, has detailed the process that must take place after someone has been found to be illegally in the country. The centre says there are certain groups of people who may not be detained for the purposes of deportation. These include asylum seekers and refugees, who are protected against deportation as this might lead to them being persecuted back home. The Immigration Act defines an illegal foreigner as a foreigner who is in the republic in contravention of the Immigration Act, or someone who does not have an asylum-seeker permit, formal recognition of refugee status or a refugee ID, or a valid permit or visa in their passport. The centre said to facilitate deportation, the department worked with the authorities of the foreign nationals country of origin to ensure they would be received upon return. The law is clear: only a police officer or an immigration officer may take a person suspected of being an illegal foreigner into custody. Only an immigration officer may arrest a person who is determined to be an illegal foreigner, or cause them to be arrested by a police officer. Only an immigration officer is able to determine that a person is an illegal foreignerin terms of the Immigration Act, the centre said. Detained people will usually be held at some police stations, prisons, detention facilities and offices under the management of the department. Those detained for deportation may be transferred to the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp, the countrys only immigration detention facility. Lindela is managed by facilities management company EnvironMongz, which also provides security services on behalf of the department.Scalabrini alleged many people detained at Lindela were not able to access the rights entitled to them.Detainees are frequently subjected to unlawful detention periods (including over 120 days), illegal sentencing, restricted access to legal representation, a lack of availability of interpreters, corruption and bribery, and the use of force. One of the latest issues that brought a legal challenge from Scalabrini earlier in 2024 was the alleged detention and deportation of asylum seekers before they could make an application for asylum. Scalabrini said the disturbing new practice of unlawfully arresting asylum seekers at refugee reception offices across SA began nationwide in November 2023. Last month, the Western Cape High Court granted an interim order interdicting the department from initiating any process to deport any foreign national present in SA if that person had indicated their intention of applying for asylum, until their asylum application was determined on its merits.   Part B of the case, which will be heard at a later date, will address the constitutionality of the contested provisions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the newly expanded BRICS group showed that a multipolar world is being created, in a challenge to the US-dominated global order.BRICS meets the aspirations of the main part of the international community, the so-called world majority, Putin said Wednesday at the formal opening of the leaders summit in Russias Kazan. Its especially in demand in the current conditions, when truly dramatic changes are taking place in the world, and the process of forming a multipolar world is underway. Russia is hosting the first summit since BRICS expanded to nine members in January, with the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia joining Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in the organization. More than 30 nations ranging from Thailand to Algeria and NATO-member Turkey have expressed interest in joining BRICS, though existing members are split over the wisdom of further expansion for now.It would be wrong to ignore the unprecedented interest of the countries of the Global South and East in strengthening contacts with BRICS, Putin told his fellow leaders. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain a balance.Putin is due to hold separate talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Irans Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the summit later Wednesday.BRICS clout is growing. Its nine members account for 26% of the world economy and 45% of the worlds population versus the Group of Sevens 44% of global gross domestic product and 10% of its inhabitants. Brazil will host next months G-20 summit, following Indias presidency last year and ahead of South Africas in 2025.Russia is under unprecedented sanctions from the US and its G-7 allies over Putins full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian leaders seeking to reduce the impact on its economy by pushing for BRICS states to reduce reliance on the dollar as a global reserve currency by boosting trade in national currencies. While many BRICS members favor greater use of national currencies in bilateral trade, they dont have the same incentive to escape the dollar-based system. Some, including India, South Africa and the UAE, also oppose any perception of BRICS as an anti-US body. The three-day event is the biggest gathering of world leaders in Russia since it began the invasion of Ukraine, and the summit is being billed by the Kremlin as proof that Putin is not an outcast despite Western efforts to isolate him.  Putin stayed away from last years BRICS summit after South Africa warned it would have to comply with an arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Ukraine issued by the International Criminal Court in March last year.

South Africa plans to ease visa rules for visitors from India and China within days to lure tourists from the worlds two most populated nations, who have been deterred by red tape. Travellers from many Western nations, including the US and UK, dont need visas for short visits to South Africa. Tourists from India and China who are part of the BRICS group  require authorisation before they travel, which is a deterrent. The Department of Home Affairs will implement a so-called Trusted Tour Operators` system from January, home affairs minister Leon Schreiber said. The tour operators, which will be vetted by the African nations authorities, will be responsible for the tour groups from the two countries. Easier visa rules have helped countries including Thailand attract Indian tourists. Nations such as Peru and Morocco are opening or expanding travel offices in Indian cities. Saudi Arabia, which says it wants 7.5 million Indian tourists annually by 2030, up from 1.5 million last year, has opened visa offices, and introduced a four-day stopover visa for Indians on long-haul flights with transfers in the kingdom.`Tourism is one of South Africas natural advantages, its one of the things we should be excelling at,` Schreiber said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. `Yet we have seen in terms of the statistics that South Africa lags behind in terms of major source markets, China and India specifically.`The government eventually plans to move to an electronic travel authorisation system, the minister said, adding that the Trusted Tour Operators` programme is temporary. The changes to tourism visas are part of wider reforms to South Africas legislation and attitude toward migration. Since Schreiber took the post at the end of June, he has eased work permit laws to simplify a byzantine system that had resulted in processing times exceeding a year. The aim is to tackle a chronic skills shortage in the country.The difficulty in obtaining tourism visas is reflected in the countrys visitor statistics. Last year about 350 000 tourists each arrived from US and the UK, as well as 245 000 from Germany, according to Statistics South Africa. Arrivals from India totalled about 80 000, while 37 000 came from China.`We believe thats low hanging fruit that can really boost the South African economy,` Schreiber said.

In a bid to root out corruption, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has said that it has finalised 31 disciplinary cases against errant officials between July and September 2024 ` with more arrests on the way.In a statement on 15 October, the DHA said that these disciplinary cases have resulted in a range of sanctions, including criminal prosecution, dismissal, suspension without pay and final written warnings. Issues of corruption have been hampering the effectiveness and institutional integrity of the DHA for years.In 2022, the Lubisi report confirmed issues of theft, fraud and corruption being instigated by officials and unscrupulous syndicates within the DHA, with an estimated 45,000 fraudulent visas and permits issued between 2014 and 2021 by the Department.The reports key recommendation was to establish a Multi-Disciplinary Task Team (MDTT), comprising forensic investigators, data analysts, and legal professionals, to investigate fraudulent permits and visas. The MDTT, set up during the tenure of former Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, has been focused on retrieving potentially fraudulent documents, pursuing legal actions against offenders, and conducting disciplinary hearings within the Department.These actions reflect the Departments intensified commitment to enforcing ethical governance and accelerating disciplinary and criminal sanctions against officials engaged in maladministration, said the DHA. Looking at the progress between July and September 2024, the officials faced transgressions relating to irregular recruitment, violation of the Citizenship Act and the violation of the Immigration Act. Eight of the cases came from the Free State, followed by six cases from KwaZulu-Natal.DHA Minister Leon Schreiber said that while we are committed to empowering the many officials who uphold ethical governance and dignified service delivery within Home Affairs, we have zero tolerance for unethical conduct or corruption.As our accelerated action against errant conduct demonstrates, officials who fail to heed this message will soon find themselves out of Home Affairs and on their way to prison, he added.The minister highlighted two key examples.One DHA official facing trial for fraud charges, set to begin on 6 November, was dismissed from the Department at the end of 2023 after being implicated in multiple fraudulent transactions benefiting primarily Pakistani nationals by allegedly manipulating the systems used to administer immigration.Another case involves a suspended Border Management Authority official who was arrested in Beitbridge for attempting to smuggle six foreign nationals into the country. Her bail hearing began on 14 October in Musina.Further arrests are expected as Home Affairs, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), assisted by the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigations (the Hawks), progresses with the implementation of Proclamation 154 of 2024. The proclamation empowers the SIU to investigate serious maladministration and improper conduct in the Department relating to the issuance of various permits.These cases make us even more determined to pursue digital transformation to close opportunities for manual and paper-based processes to be exploited towards corrupt ends, said Schreiber. Digital transformation holds the key to uprooting corruption in our systems, while enhancing the efficiency of service delivery, he added.The Lubisi report also called for legislative amendments to improve the immigration system, as outlined in the White Paper. This has been seen to be set in motion.Recently, Schreiber gazetted far-reaching reforms for South Africas visa regime.The gazetting of the Remote Work Visitor Visa and the new Points-Based System for Work Visas on 9 October 2024 is said to remove bureaucratic hurdles which have hampered South Africas visa regime.Schreiber said that the fit-for-purpose and market-friendly reforms would reposition South Africa as a world-class destination for investment and tourism to create thousands of new jobs.Back in May 2024, former Home Affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi re-gazetted amendments to South Africas immigration laws, which included the new points-based system for critical skills and a remote work visa.However, various elements have been amended since.The minister said that this includes that the new points-based system also introduces a transparent framework to adjudicate visas to tackle corruption. Our determination to root out corruption is absolute, as winning this fight is essential to our vision of turning Home Affairs into a respected and ethical institution that delivers dignity to all our clients, said Schreiber.

Eugene Brink says Minister Leon Schreiber has put accountability front and centre of his tenure When you think of the Department of Home Affairs, you are usually filled with dread and other unpleasant feelings for various reasons. Corruption, lax officials and system failures, to name just a few.It is a vital government department in desperate need of some good news after years of ineptitude, a lack of accountability and malfeasance. As is stated early in the 2022 Lubisi report on the issuance of visas and permits: The Department of Home Affairs is regarded as one of South Africas most strategic and important aspects of the national security architecture. However, it also remains one of the most vulnerable and targeted departments in government.They control peoples identities, lives and livelihoods. People have committed suicide and many crimes have been committed on account of errors and corrupt acts by home affairs officials. Although an individual seldom needs its services, it has a social, economic and political impact like few other state agencies. In other words, good luck with doing anything worthwhile without having the proper documentation. Claudia Pizzocri, CEO at Eisenberg & Associates, wrote in Business Day in August that the Covid-19 backlog only worsened and made more conspicuous pre-existing conditions of disarray in home affairs. She adds that complacency, insufficient training in constitutional governance, and a security cluster-orientated approach to immigration issues, have consistently lowered standards and caused friction between government, citizens and foreigners.Although the department was and is admittedly not completely dysfunctional, its vast historic scope of corruption and incompetence cannot be chronicled here. This stretches down from top to bottom, and from poor policy decisions to syndicates and small-time venal officials, and to failed digital initiatives.However, a personal anecdote and bigger news stories have contributed to a renewed sense of optimism about home affairs and especially its impact on an economy so reliant on tourism and travel. Not able to drive to a bank branch in Cape Town at a specific date and time, I recently visited the Paarl office near my house with some trepidation to renew my passport. The queues were reasonable, all the staff were friendly and helpful, and I completed my entire application in under an hour. A week later I collected my passport with little effort. This is in stark contrast to my previous experiences at other offices.This came on the back of news that the department had cleared  in a single month  an ID backlog of 247 500 that had accumulated since November 2023. Home affairs minister Dr Leon Schreiber has also gazetted the much-vaunted Remote Work Visitor Visa and the new Points-Based System for Work Visas. This step has drawn praise from the business and tourism sectors for its potential to draw visitors, skilled workers and investors to the country while creating local jobs through their spend. On top of this, Schreiber has put accountability front and centre of his tenure. Some officials were sporadically disciplined, dismissed and even criminally convicted in the past, but corrupt officials have too often escaped sanction for gross misconduct. These efforts have certainly been stepped up since the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU). BusinessLive reported that the department took action against 33 officials between July and September. This ranged from criminal prosecution to dismissal and suspension without pay. Apparently, this is only the thin end of the wedge and more arrests will follow. Emphatically, it seems that Schreiber is making the secure digitalisation of his departments documents the cornerstone of his tenure. Some efforts have been made in this regard, but none have largely eliminated to visit physical home affairs offices or the 30 dispersed bank branches that assist with passports and smart IDs. He is confident that the department will be fully digital by 2029. I hope hes right and it can certainly be done. Bearing in mind that there is a large digital divide in South Africa  as in the rest of the Third World  many people (especially in rural areas) will not be able to make use of these services in the foreseeable future. But it does alleviate much of the pressure on the existing resources, which could be diverted to offices in those areas. And it will be a huge convenience boost for the rest of us while combating corruption. No more long queues, travelling and wasted hours. After all, it is the 21st Century and there is no reason why we shouldnt be able to do it like the Swedes, Fins and Danes do.         Turning this department around is a Herculean task, to say the least. Schreiber is up against entrenched corrupt networks inside and outside his department, hostile bureaucrats, the unions, and other government entities being able to do what they are supposed to. But green shoots are indeed showing, and this early progress could be prelude to perfection.