Undocumented migrants – The
myths, realities, and what we know and don’t know
Groundup – 22 April 2022
The fact that we don’t actually know how many
‘undocumented’ migrants there are is, in part, attributable to a systemic
problem of state administration with the Department of Home Affairs.
Kopanang
Africa Against Xenophobia had planned a demonstration on Human Rights Day 2022 across South
Africa, but alas it was banned by the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police
Department (JMPD). The aim of the ban was to avoid conflict since those
involved in Operation Dudula had threatened to attack the anti-xenophobia
march.
The JMPD
could not guarantee the safety of both sides in a possible confrontation fueled
by a concoction of mistruths and misperceptions about non-nationals being
responsible for unemployment, crime and poverty in South Africa.
This
approach by the JMPD further exposed how under-resourced they are and how
incapable they have been in dealing with xenophobic violence in South Africa.
This appears to back up the view that the police, given substantial media
attention for its harassment of non-nationals, has indeed taken a xenophobic
stance.
Xenophobic
attacks and harassment of refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants and other
locally defined “outsiders” are often fueled by politicians’ populist rhetoric
and influential people in the news media in South Africa.
Politicians
are riding deep-seated anti-“foreigner” sentiment instead of presenting
workable solutions to the real problems in South Africa, such as the provision
of water, housing, toilets, sanitation and waste management, jobs, electricity,
and the combating of corruption, poverty and unemployment.
But what
do we know, or not know about the issues? This article takes a look at some
claims made by ActionSA and other populist movements targeting non-nationals
and weighs them against research evidence.
Last week
on social media, Herman Mashaba, who is known for his controversial
anti-“foreign national” rhetoric, reshared ActionSA’s “immigration blueprint”
first released by his party in 2020.
In the
document, ActionSA states “it is estimated that 10% of all people living in
South Africa are undocumented migrants”. ActionSA doesn’t cite its source for
that figure and media reportage in 2021 made claims of this number sitting at
four million undocumented migrants, citing Stats SA as a source.
But the
truth is, we don’t know how many “undocumented” migrants there are in the
country. In response to claims made in media reports citing the figure at four
million, Stats SA states that these reports were “erroneous” and that “Stats SA
wishes to categorically indicate that it has at no point made any estimation or
comment on undocumented migrants”.
Statistician-General
Risenga Maluleke said that “if one uses the output of foreign-born persons
enumerated in Census 2011 and adds to it the net international migrants for the
period 2011-2016, as well as the period 2016-2021 from the 2021 midyear
population estimates, one would get an estimation of 3.95 million persons”, but
“this includes migrants of all types and is collated regardless of legal
status”.
The fact
that we don’t actually know how many “undocumented” migrants there are, is in
part attributable to a systemic problem of state administration with the
Department of Home Affairs, and in part to the geographical landscape of
Africa, where definitive boundaries between “mine” and “yours” in communities
that live close to borders are non-existent.
So, what
do we know?
1.
Administrative violence is a reality
Both
migrants and South Africans face “administrative violence” by the Department of
Home Affairs regarding documentation, the Brenthurst Foundation heard from
multiple sources in its ongoing research on migrant experiences with Covid-19
in South Africa.
ActionSA
says in its “immigration blueprint” that “the problem is not that citizens of
other countries have chosen our country as their home, but rather that too many
foreigners enter South Africa without following the legal process of
immigration”. But, as an NGO that works with migrants points out, “nobody wants
to be undocumented… the pathways to documentations are limited and those that
are available are skewed”.
We also
know that refugee centres of the Department of Home Affairs are closed in some
provinces, in some cases since the inception of Covid and in other provinces
since 2012. So, any asylum seeker or refugee whose documents expired during
this period has been unable to renew their documents, rendering them
“undocumented” – not because they are not willing to renew their documentation,
but because Home Affairs’ centres are not available to enable them to do so.
The
Africa Integration Agenda, as well as Agenda 2063, seeks to enhance free
movement of persons, right of establishment and right of abode for African
citizens among African countries. This includes the elimination of visa
requirements for travel by Africans within Africa, and makes redundant the
issue of whether an African in Africa is documented or not documented.
Consequently,
progressive African states in several other regional economic communities have
already instituted visa-free travel for up to 90 days, and visas on arrival
have been implemented by other African countries. Some have even signed
bilateral and multilateral visa-free arrangements between their respective
countries, aimed at bolstering trade, job creation and inclusive growth.
The
recently signed African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will not work if
people cannot move freely within the continent and have to go through extremely
stringent procedures, most of which do not work. If we cannot move, we cannot
trade. Cross-border trade accounts for almost 60% of intra-African
trade.
2.
Headhunting of locals hampering the country and the potential of skilled
non-nationals is not being explored
As South
Africa is doing its best to discourage skilled Africans from entering the
country, other more developed economies are headhunting the best and brightest
from South Africa, leading to an exodus of many critical skills from the
country. Canada, US, New Zealand, UK and Australia are among those who are
headhunting.
As these
developed countries continue to headhunt skills from South Africa and
illustrate to people their clearly laid out pathways to documentation, it will
get to a point where many of the skills that South Africa needs will have left,
rendering the Critical Skills List futile.
The
efforts and resources being used to keep Africans from entering the country
would be more usefully directed at preserving the best and brightest we
currently have, and attracting skilled people from across the continent.
Among
undocumented migrants are some highly educated and skilled people who are worth
paying attention to. As one respondent said to us in our migrant survey, “my
gardener has a degree in teaching, while my barber is a chartered accountant”.
A skills audit could yield a massive skills harvest for South Africa’s critical
skills deficit.
A
rational approach would be based on a skills audit of South Africa’s 13 million
unemployed people. The skilled among them should be used to meet South Africa’s
critical skills shortages, with the shortfall being addressed by skills from
elsewhere. To achieve this, non-nationals would have to be properly and efficiently
documented by the Department of Home Affairs.
3.
Statelessness of children born in South Africa to non-nationals causes serious
problems
Migration
has both stock and flow dimensions. In addition to the challenges of flows,
there are also challenges with the stock of migrants in South Africa that
exacerbates in the long term the issue of undocumented migrants.
A typical
example is the issue of statelessness. A baby born in South Africa to
non-national parents is not issued with a birth certificate. We heard this from
multiple sources in an ongoing study undertaken by the Brenthurst
Foundation.
A baby
born to non-national parents in South Africa is rendered “stateless” with no
national identity, and is issued only with a hand-written note from the
Department of Home Affairs. This note serves as proof of the date of birth, the
parents they were born to and the place they were born in.
But this
hand-written note is not captured on the national database, the Brenthurst
Foundation heard. When the child turns 16, they are barred from applying for an
identity document that is needed to write matric. But this problem is not
unique to only children of migrant parents. There are stateless children of
South African parents too, as a result of the dysfunctionality of the
Department of Home Affairs.
As one of
our key NGO informants in the study explained, “There is a huge gap in
understanding [on the part of the state] when an undocumented child becomes an
irregular migrant liable for deportation, and all protection from the
Children’s Act falls away because the child is now 18 years… So those are many
of the issues we still need to tackle.”
Mothers
(South African or otherwise) who give birth far away from a Home Affairs office
face the struggle of attempting to document a child later after birth. Mothers
are faced with obstacle after obstacle to register their child late. This is
not necessarily the fault of a mother, but is rather an issue of access.
Our
research shows that the root of the problem lies with documentation. The
Department of Home Affairs must allow its policy decisions to be informed by
good research and real data.
Right
now, populist campaigns against foreigners are using the absence of real
statistics to place exaggerated numbers and inaccurate reasons in the public
domain to justify their xenophobic actions.
www.samigration.com
