As far back as 1998, Human Rights Watch reported a rise of xenophobia in the country and that “... some politicians in SA are exploiting the issue of undocumented migration for their own political gain, increasing levels of xenophobia by making unfounded and explosive statements about the cost of undocumented migration and its effects on various social services and crime.
“The mainstream debate around illegal immigration in SA, focusing on the economic impact and the impact on crime of undocumented migration, has been alarmist and ill-informed.”
The most recent xenophobic attacks on social media directed at the newly appointed home affairs minister after his first act as a minister — extending the concessions made in light of the persistent backlog for legal foreigners with pending delayed applications — are a glaring example of how things have remained unchanged and how social media disinformation campaigns and agendas can thrive in modern times.
Shortly after the social media strike, to restore the public opinion balance, new home affairs minister Leon Schreiber publicly commended the SA Police Service on the arrest of undocumented foreigners in Paarl. According to the police, a trailer attached to a bus had been found to contain undocumented women and children, and one of the passengers attempted to bribe the police official who instead “honoured his mandate and executed an arrest on charges of prevention and combating of corrupt activities, an offence in terms of the Immigration Act, and prevention and combating of trafficking in persons”.
Given the minor scale of this incident in the context of the millions of illegal foreigners estimated to be within our borders, one can only wonder if its newsworthiness relates more to the non-venality of the police official rather than to a success story in the country’s fight against illegal immigration.
Back in 1997, then home affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s estimate was that the number of illegal foreigners in SA was between 2.5-million and 5-million. Reading between the lines, the narrative was that less than 10% of the estimated population at the time was responsible for the surge of crime in SA. This storyline and the absence of any evidence to support it has found fertile ground in which to grow year after year across a population subjected to a severe lack of fundamental service provision.
In early 2024, then home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi, in full political campaign mode, vowed repeatedly to remove illegal immigrants and get rid of what he referred to as “crocodiles”. Dr Motsoaledi further clarified that his primary target was “respectable people who enter the country legally wearing suits or high heels carrying briefcases full of cash to bribe officials to legalise their stay in the country. We have reason to believe that crocodiles are found all over the country in very high positions.”
On April 17, coinciding with the publication of the final White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration & Refugees Protection, Dr Motsoaledi also stated that “no-one can account for all undocumented migrants. [Home affairs] has no idea as to how many illegal immigrants are in SA”.
This admission alone undermined the border protection-driven immigration policies and credo he and his predecessors actively promoted. The establishment of the Border Management Agency was after all his solution to reduce the risk of illegal migration through SA’s porous borders.
The common thread over the years has remained alarmingly vague numbers, ineffective solutions and bribes. Yet understanding the real number of illegal immigrants is only the tip of the iceberg for a country struggling to come to terms with its own census. As recently as October 2023, the SA census set the record for the highest undercount (31%) among those countries where the undercount is measured and reported by the UN Population Division.
Although Stats SA has challenged these claims as unfounded and misleading, it remains evident that an undercount of any extent defeats the whole purpose of collecting census data, which is crucially aimed at planning investment and allocating resources within a country’s public and private sectors.
Whether undocumented and illegal foreigners are really responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in SA, or not, it should be in everyone’s best interest to have an accurate census of illegal immigrants, allowing for their biometrics to be captured, their addresses to be included in reliable databases, and their ties, contribution or lack thereof to SA to be verified and considered rather than running dangerous witch hunts that only lead to bribes and fraud or, even worse, human rights violations.
Inconsistent application of our law and selective enforcement are not the answer. Arresting and deporting “crocodiles” — men, women and children — is not the way forward. We should demand a more human rights-driven and considered approach from our government.
Raids and arrests, as have been witnessed in the recent past, will only increase xenophobia, fraud and crime. Fraudulent remedies will increase with the increased demand and desperation. Bribes, fraudulent documents, fake marriages and illegal activities beyond an immigration perspective will prosper like a pandemic. Just over the past few weeks the number of enquiries received by this law firm from foreigners relating to work visas they don’t qualify for has surged in an unprecedented manner. This demand will be met somewhere else as people are left with no other choice.
Fraud and security breaches within the department of home affairs are also unmatched in their level of sophistication. This is cause for great concern, considering the sensitive information received, stored and processed by the department in its daily functions.
Investigating these integrity breaches within home affairs should be a primary focus if the department wishes to implement meaningful change rather than enact extreme measures to combat illegal migration and the breach of SA’s physical borders. We often only hear of the causes célèbre and not of the daily ramifications of these toxic operations.
A well-co-ordinated and well-informed amnesty with specific objectives and lawful process is the only effective solution to avoid the ongoing internal and external onslaught.