We asked the major contestants of the 29 May elections about immigration. Illustration: Lisa Nelson Today’s questions and answers to the major political parties deal with immigration. We emailed our questions to the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP, FF Plus, ActionSA, PA, MK Party, and RISE Mzansi on 13 March and sent follow-up queries to those who did not respond. Some have still not responded. Answers are very lightly edited for grammar and typos. Does your party support continued extensions of the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP)? ANC: The ANC did not answer our questions. DA: The DA in government would introduce the following special dispensation with regard to our closest neighbours: • Allow ZEP holders, approximately 180,000 Zimbabwean nationals, to apply for any alternative visa for which they qualify, including permanent residency for ZEP holders of more than five years. • Allow visa-free entry allowing travel, study, and trade or establishment of a business to all citizens of Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Namibia with a path to permanent residency for postgraduates, those qualifying under the points system, and for those whose business has survived after five years. • Initially, this will not include the right to seek work, and separate work provisions will still govern the ability to work. • After three years of the roll-out of this special dispensation programme, review the evidence and consider setting out a clear plan with timelines for integrating Zimbabwe and the rest of SADC into the special dispensation. • The special dispensation programme should form part of South Africa’s custom roadmap to the progressive realisation of the African Union protocol by building implementation experience in the region. EFF: The EFF did not answer our questions. IFP: The IFP has supported the Minister throughout this process, focusing on concluding the current permit exemption system and urging Zimbabweans to regularise their stay in South Africa by applying for appropriate visas. Regarding the future of Zimbabweans in South Africa post-permit expiry, the expectation is clear: they should ideally return to their homeland, unless they successfully apply for and obtain alternative visa categories that allow them to stay. This directive applies broadly, including to children of Zimbabwean parents born and raised in South Africa, who are also expected to return should their parents do so, barring qualification for other visas. FF Plus: The FF Plus answered no. Asked what should happen to Zimbabweans in South Africa once their permits expire, the FF Plus responded: The holders of these permits should be allowed to apply for alternative visas and in the case of permit holders who have been in South Africa for more than five years they should be able to apply for permanent residency. Asked what about the children of Zimbabwean parents born in South Africa who have grown up here, the FF Plus responded: They should be allowed to apply for permanent residency. ActionSA: ActionSA has expressed concern about the extension of the permit and referred to their statement released in 2022, which provides broader insight on the matter. Essentially, ActionSA is opposed to the ZEP, stating the extension of the ZEP was “a mockery of our constitutional democracy”. PA: This government unforgivably put itself and all of us in a very difficult situation with these permits years ago. They now realise they had no business doing it, but it’s very difficult to turn back the clock. They’re trying to convince voters that they’ve suddenly become tough on illegal immigration, but we don’t think people are buying it. We do not support the continued extensions of the permit. Whoever has been given these permits must be processed properly by the system and if that means they need to go home, then so be it. Asked what should happen to Zimbabweans in South Africa once their permits expire, the PA responded: They need to be processed to determine if they should stay here or go home. We believe that the majority will not meet the criteria to stay. Asked what about the children of Zimbabwean parents born in South Africa who have grown up here, the PA responded: What about them? We would not want to separate families. They should go home too. MK Party: The MK Party did not respond to our questions. RISE Mzansi: RISE Mzansi believes that South Africa’s immigration system is broken and needs comprehensive reform. The challenge of the ZEP is one big symptom of the wider problem. We appreciate that holders of the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit have built lives in South Africa, including raising children in the country. It would be inhumane to expel them. It is also untenable to leave them in legal limbo. ZEP holders without criminal records should be enabled to apply for permanent residence to regularise the fact that they are now long term residents in South Africa. This regularisation must be coupled with wider immigration reforms to manage regional migration. These include: better management of our borders and ports of entry; engaging with neighbouring countries on migration to prevent irregular migration into South Africa; fixing the asylum seeker management system to resolve the multi-year backlog in asylum decisions and stop its use as a channel for economic migrants; and increasing immigration enforcement of industries so that migrants without legitimate visas authorising work find it difficult or impossible to work in South Africa, reducing pull factors. Many foreign nationals have been living in South Africa for years without the required documentation. Does your party support regularising their stay? If so, under what conditions? ANC: The ANC did not answer our questions. DA: In order to address future undocumented migration and the current undocumented population in South Africa, the DA will: • Explore the economic cost vs benefit of an e-verification system that would enable employers to check the work eligibility status of potential employees against a Home Affairs database. If feasible, this would mandate employers to verify that a prospective employee possesses a valid permit to work in South Africa. A self-check mechanism must also be provided to allow persons to check their status and resolve any discrepancies. • Investigate and drastically improve conditions and treatment at holding facilities for those arrested or awaiting deportation, and prevent unlawful arrests, human rights violations, and poor treatment of irregular migrants. • Provide an amnesty period for all undocumented migrants, giving them an opportunity to either return home and attempt to re-enter legally without prejudice or to apply for the relevant visa from within South Africa (provided they have the required documentation). If the application from within South Africa is unsuccessful, then the same rules as a failed visa renewal apply. EFF: The EFF did not answer our questions. IFP: South Africa is home to many undocumented migrants. The IFP has dedicated a section in its manifesto to illegal foreigners. We propose a six-month exemption period in which we are in favour of regularising their stay under specific conditions and subject to our laws. For individuals who meet these criteria, we believe in creating a pathway to legalising their stay, ensuring they can continue to contribute positively to our society without the fear of deportation. For those who do not meet these conditions, we propose an amnesty period of six months to humanely and orderly address an undocumented migrant’s status and process repatriation to their country of origin. This includes assistance in applying for the necessary documentation or, in cases where staying in South Africa is not an option, support for voluntary repatriation to their countries of origin. Our approach is guided by a commitment to uphold human dignity while ensuring the security and prosperity of South Africans. FF Plus: Regularising is important and illegal immigration should be eradicated through efficient border control. ActionSA: ActionSA did not answer this question. PA: If they entered the country in a criminal fashion, they will need to leave. If they don’t leave, we will mass deport them. If we arrest them again, they will be criminally charged and jailed. Your question suggests that just because someone has been doing something wrong for a long time, they should be treated differently. Imagine if we treated other crimes the same way. You’d end up not prosecuting people who’ve been defrauding their employer for many years. Or maybe if someone has been robbing cash-in-transit vans for 20 years, should we say: “Let’s go easy on him, he’s been doing this for a long time?” MK Party: The MK Party did not respond to our questions. RISE Mzansi: We would apply the same principles outlined above in relation to the ZEP. Children born to undocumented immigrant parents in South Africa are effectively stateless. Should they automatically be given South African citizenship? ANC: The ANC did not answer our questions. DA: The DA is committed to preventing the occurrence of child statelessness and mitigating its consequences through appropriate interventions, such as: • Strengthening the institutional capacity for the management and protection of stateless persons. • Promoting partnerships between government and development partners, civil society, and NGOs to strengthen the response to statelessness. • Removing the requirement for a South African citizen to witness the birth to receive a notice of birth. • Allowing children to apply for naturalisation at the age of 18 where they have no proof of birth registration. • Proactively working with the Department of Basic Education to address the large numbers of learners without birth registration through increased deployment of mobile units and opening of Home Affairs offices on Saturdays to accommodate school learners. EFF: The EFF did not answer our questions IFP: When discussing whether a child born to undocumented migrants is stateless, it’s important to clarify a common misunderstanding. A child born under these circumstances is not stateless. Every child comes from a country, and is therefore affiliated with a country through their parents’ nationality. For instance, if a child’s parents are undocumented migrants from Mozambique, the RSA government will still issue a notice of birth for the child. This certificate is a crucial document that acknowledges the child’s birth. This process ensures that the child is recognised by their parents’ home country. The misconception that these children are stateless arises from a lack of awareness about this procedure. However, the truth is they are not stateless; they have a country of origin determined by their parents’ nationality. FF Plus: They should be allowed to apply for permanent residency. ActionSA: ActionSA did not answer this question. PA: Your assumptions are untrue. The USA is one of the few countries that practises this idea of rights of the soil, meaning you have some claim to statehood just because you were born there. South Africa, like most other countries in the world, recognises statehood by family lineage. Therefore, in South Africa, you are not “effectively stateless”. Home Affairs gives you a certificate of recognition of birth, which your parents are meant to take back to their country, with you, to have your birth registered in their country, so that you can get citizenship where you belong. We have no intention of changing this approach. MK Party: The MK Party did not answer our questions. RISE Mzansi: No they should not automatically be given SA citizenship. This would undermine our citizenship laws which do not grant citizenship based on place of birth, but rather on the condition that one of a child’s parents is South African, wherever they are born. We believe there are relatively few cases of immigrants in South Africa with no documents whatsoever. Most immigrants in South Africa have passports from their home countries. Unless a migrant is granted asylum, Home Affairs should work with their embassy or consulate to verify their citizenship, find relatives and register their children’s birth. Only in exceptional cases where an undocumented immigrant minor cannot be reunited with parents or guardians and assume their citizenship, should South African citizenship be granted to prevent statelessness.

The Department of Home Affairs is going through a torrid time. As The South African reported earlier this year, naturalised South Africans are being refused smart ID cards. This is despite having the same constitutional rights as every other South African citizen. Now, Home Affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi has decided to clarify the reasons behind lengthy delays for spousal visas. Business Tech reports that some spousal (and relatives) visas are taking up to two years to process. The minister of Home Affairs says this is because documentation and claims need to be verified. Replying to a parliamentary Q&A session, the minister says the issue is being addressed by the Home Affairs ‘Backlog Eradication Plan`. As part of its efforts, 117 additional officials have been pulled in to work through the backlog of applications. The minister also says his department is looking for skilled partners in the private sector to help speed up these proceedings. Applicants for spousal and relative visas are waiting as long as two years. This is due to notarial agreements and documents such as birth certificates, bank statements and marriage certificates that need to be verified. In order to establish the legitimacy of any relative and/or spousal relationship, a stringent adjudication process is required. Adding insult to injury in spousal visa downtime, says the Home Affairs minister, contact numbers of the purported spouses/relatives are often not provided. Moreover, Home Affairs is jointly developing an Application Programme Interface (API) to further manage and streamline this labour-intensive data verification process, confirmed Motsoaledi. Motsoaledi says the department hopes to expand its service channels. This includes more service kiosks, mobile offices, new offices at banks and shopping malls and connectivity through online and mobile apps. This includes the modernising of five new offices with the adoption of live-capture systems. A reminder that Home Affairs is also opening its offices for five extra hours on Saturdays, from 6 April to 25 May 2024. They will be open from 08h00 to 13h00 for ID collection services, new applications and Temporary Identity Certificates. You’re encouraged to book appointments online to collect ID documents before visiting offices in person. This can be done at the link HERE through the Branch Appointment Booking System (BABS).

Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has blamed visa backlogs on the growth in the number of notarial contracts being instituted by foreign nationals using non-existent spouses.
Motsoaledi was speaking at a media briefing in Pretoria, on Tuesday on the amended immigration regulations, over which he said there seemed to be some misunderstanding.
He said as a result of the confusion, the department would be withdrawing the gazetted amendments to clear up the misconceptions and would re-gazette them as early as next week.
The minister admitted that his department was experiencing a backlog surrounding dependants, spouses and relatives’ visas being sought by foreign nationals who had been approved to come into the country after successfully obtaining employment.
He said in most cases while the approvals were easily obtained, they did not include spouses and dependants, which many were decrying as they were not willing to be separated from their families.
Despite understanding this need, Motsoaledi said there was a situation which allowed foreign nationals to obtain a spousal visa should they marry a South African citizen, which was causing a problem for the department. He said they were finding that, in many cases, spouses that did not exist were being created through notarial contracts simply to obtain visas.
“Through the notarial contracts you come with a partner, and go to the notary general to write you a contract stating that you are staying together as partners and when you bring that to Home Affairs, they regard you as a spouse.
“The number of notarial contracts is increasing day by day but when we send immigration officers to visit such families, they don’t find any spouse,” Motsoaledi said.
The minister said what was even more alarming was the fact that the number of these kinds of contracts were growing in “leaps and bounds”, resulting in the backlog. “This backlog is changing every day because the notarials are growing daily. Now we have a situation where immigration officers visit families for six months, with no spouse in sight, so what are we to do? Unfortunately, it’s a problem we are going to have to change because it’s in the law.”
He stressed that his department usually did not experience backlogs on critical skills, general work and business visas “but people with critical skills may be complaining of delays referring to delays in obtaining spouses for their visas”.
“The only way to know that indeed we have delayed giving someone a critical skills visa is for companies to provide us with a name of the employed person, because once you appear in the gazette and give us a letter of employment from your employer we issue it (the visa) immediately.”
Motsoaledi said that while several complaints been received from Chamber of Business units and allegations were made in the media, when requested to provide a list of names to verify, none were forthcoming.
“The reality we face is that you might be an engineer with a PhD but if no company gives you a job in South Africa, why should we allow you to come?
There must be a company that needs you and then we can come in and facilitate entry into the country.
“The change we are bringing in these amendments is to do away with the requirement of having to go to the Department of Employment and Labour and replace it with a point-based system.”
The minister said they were unable to expand more on the point-based system because it still needed to be gazetted as they wanted to hear what the public would say about the scoring or points awarded.



Home Affairs Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has moved to clarify a misunderstanding on the gazetted regulations recommendations on the Critical Skills and General Work Visas.
This comes after some media reports had stated that the department had done away with the Critical Skills Visa in favour of a point-based system.
Briefing the media on the Second Amendment of the Immigration Regulation 2014 on Tuesday, Motsoaledi pointed out that section 19(4) of the Immigration Act states that a Critical Skills Work Visa may be issued by the Director-General to an individual possessing such skills or qualifications determined to be critical for the Republic from time to time by the Minister by notice in the gazette.
However, section 19(2) of the Act states that a General Work Visa may be issued by the Director-General to a foreigner not falling within the category contemplated in sub-section 4 and who complies with prescribed requirements.
“Sub-section 4 is the one dealing with critical skills [and] this means general work is anything that is not covered in the critical skills list. The prescribed requirements mentioned in the Act are found in regulation 18 (3) of the previous regulation before the amendments.” Motsoaledi said.
Compiling the critical skills list
He emphasised that the department has not cancelled the Critical Skills Work Visa but has changed the manner in which the visa was previously operating.
“In the past, a critical skills list visa was issued every four years, and the Minister of Home Affairs is supposed to gazette skills that are critical to the economy of the country. But Home Affairs does not have the capacity, nor the knowledge, nor the skills to know what is required.
“What Home Affairs does is go to the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). The DHET usually asks the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and the council will work with other institutions, including labour market surveys, to put up a list of skills which they think are critical for the economy of the country,” Motsoaledi explained.
The Minister also noted that critical skills are not necessarily referring to important skills or prestigious skills like some people believe.
“A critical skill is that which is critical for the functioning of the economy but there are few South Africans who can do that work, and so we are forced to go beyond the borders of this country to look for those people with such skills.
“Once the profession we have got appears on that critical skills list, which would have been gazetted by the Minister of Home Affairs, you get a letter of employment, then Home Affairs is forced to give you a Critical Skills Work Visa,” Motsoaledi explained, adding that the visa is one of the easiest to give, as it only requires a profession.
General Work Visa approval system
On the General Work Visa amendment, Motsoaledi said employers are no longer required to go to the Department of Employment and Labour, but the visa would be approved through a point-based system.
“We are going to give you points, and on the basis of that point you have to reach a particular mark, then you get your visa,” the Minister said.
The Minister said the point-based system will consider at least six criteria, including age; qualifications; language skills, work experience; offer of employment; and the ability to adapt within the Republic.
However, Motsoaledi said the department is considering replacing the ability to adapt within the Republic with income or salary being offered to an individual.
New work visa regulations withdrawn
Meanwhile, Motsoaledi announced the withdrawal of the new work visa regulations, which were gazetted on 28 March 2024 for public comments, a day before the closing date for public comments on the draft policy.
This follows the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) meeting held last week, where the process was questioned and Nedlac demanded the withdrawal of the regulations.
“These regulations are being withdrawn in the government gazette, simply to rectify this small error, not that we are going to change them. In the process we will change other smaller issues which we have picked up which may not [have] been understood,` he said.

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has backtracked on its new Immigration Regulations but still has several new initiatives in the pipeline for South Africa.
Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi said that he would withdraw the recently gazetted Immigration Regulation Amendments.
The regulations replaced the highly-contested critical skills list with a new points-based system.
The regulations were received positively by businesses in South Africa, with the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa saying that they should ease the administrative burden that international companies with businesses in South Africa face when hiring skilled foreigners.
However, the Minister still faced backlash after the regulations were published a day prior to the closing date for comments (29 March), which he said was due to being misadvised.
He said that the Department is in the process of finalising the regulations and will provide a revised version next week.
He also announced several significant updates and initiatives within the Department.
Marisa Jacobs, the Managing Director at Xpatweb, broke down the new initiatives:
Remote Work Visa
The Remote Work Visa is designed for individuals wishing to work in South Africa while working for foreign employers.
The visa targets high-earning individuals and aims to stimulate the South African economy.
General Work Visa changes
The aforementioned Points-Based system for a General Work Visa aims to eliminate the need to obtain a letter from the Department of Labour.
This new streamlined approach looks at criteria based on factors, such as age and qualifications to determine visa eligibility on a points-based scale.
Critical Skills List
Organisations can now also expedite the gazetting process for critical skills that are seen as essential, removing the previous four-year waiting period.
This should facilitate swift approval for in-demand skills.
Trusted Employer Scheme
Jacobs said that the Trusted Employer Scheme (TES) has been successful, but the Minister warned that approved Employers will soon face stricter compliance measures, such as random checks by the Department.
Non-compliance would result in the expulsion of the TES program.
That said, the Department is inviting a second round of submissions from qualifying companies to join TES in May 2024.
Management of the Backlog
The Minister also said that 90% of the total backlog faced by the Department is due to Relative, Dependent and Spousal visas, with the delays attributed to challenges in verifying marriages.
A dedicated team has been assigned to expedite applications.
“The DHA plans to provide detailed statistics on visa approvals versus rejections to indicate the current processing times of the various visa categories,” said Jacobs.
“The Minister further touched on the current directive which allows any individual who has applied for an extension of their visa and has received a VFS receipt status in South Africa while awaiting the outcome of the application.”
Review of the White Paper
The DHA is also reviewing laws outlined in the highly controversial White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection, with a focus on replacing certain sections.
The White Paper aims to amend the South African Citizenship Act, which Motsoaledi called a ‘relic of the colonial era’, but Rebecca Walker and Loren B Landau from the University of the Witwatersrand that the changes are just a smokescreen to distract voters from the government’s failures ahead of the elections.
“Changes being considered adhere strictly to regulatory frameworks, ensuring compliance and legality,” said Jacobs.
New Start-up Visa
A new start-up visa is also being considered for individuals wishing to open or invest in a small- or medium-sized business in South Africa.
Concerned individuals will also be afforded access to the corporate account unit within the DHA.
Key Take Away
“Where you need an urgent work or residency visa, the process has not changed much for the past two years �` you need to apply as early as possible and be ready for legal escalation where DHA do not do their job,” said Jacobs
“We are cautiously optimistic, as we are seeing quicker turnaround on some matters. Yet, we were also today in court against DHA, so there remain two sides to the coin.”
“A correctly issued work and residency permit is one of the most stressful events where it goes wrong, as it impacts every aspect of one's life "