Migration policies must be modernised and fit for purpose
Fundamental problem is corruption and inefficiency in home affairs
Legal grievances against the department of home affairs, including contempt of court cases, are depressingly common.
Most of the court cases involve visas and permits for foreign visitors, immigrants and prospective refugees.
Just a few months ago home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi apologised to the government and the people of SA “for the mess created by officials of the department of home affairs”. This was triggered by his failure to amend an unconstitutional law which allowed for the detention of irregular migrants for 120 days.
The rotten state of the department is widely known. Two reports released in the past three years set out the problems in detail. One, released in 2022, chronicled a backlog of visa, permit and status applications, evidence of fraudulent applications being first rejected, then accepted, and the system being used illegally.
The other found multiple failures in the provision of visas to senior business managers and experts.
Immigration has grown relatively rapidly in the past 20 years. The proportion of migrants to local people more than doubled from a relatively low level of 2.1% in 2000 to a moderate level of 4.8% in 2020, according to UN data.
Migration policy is likely to be a key issue in SA’s forthcoming elections. Populist parties are expected to mobilise around people’s fears, while the government will continue to use immigration as an excuse for poor service delivery and joblessness. The reality is that the impact of migrants on the circumstances of poor South Africans is marginal, and far less important than the very poor performance of the economy and government institutions.
The problems would best be addressed by improvement in the operations of the department of home affairs. This should be accompanied by modernisation of migration law to encourage the use of regular migration channels and discourage irregularity.
The main findings of the two investigations were:
• Fraudulent documentation was used in 36,647 applications for visas, permits or status over a 16year period.
• Systems that had been replaced were still being used illegally from time to time. The outcomes of such activities were suspicious. In some cases applications were processed in zero days. The investigation found visa expiry dates issued beyond the legal limit.
• The databases for naturalisation and population registration didn’t correlate with each other.
• The list identifying undesirable immigrants was “fatally flawed due to incomplete and missing crucial data”.
• In some cases, files had been inserted illegally into the information system. This would require “a highly skilled IT user with administrator rights to execute”.
• The department did not have systems that could identify multiple applications by the same person.
The department recently issued a draft white paper which it said was aimed at addressing the problems. It proposed severely curtailing the rights of prospective refugees, restricting paths to citizenship, and strengthening the Border Management Authority.
But it is clear that these changes won’t solve the problems. Tighter restrictions lead to greater illegality, not less migration.
The most disappointing element of the draft white paper is that it makes no reference to recommendations made in the two reports.
It gives the impression that the challenge of migration policy can be solved with tighter laws on refugees and citizenship. In fact the fundamental problem is the corruption and inefficiency in the permits and visa section of the department.
The draft white paper was designed primarily to give the ruling party a narrative for the upcoming election, rather than to reform the migration governance regime. – The Conversation
Hirsch is a research fellow New South Institute, Emeritus Professor at The Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town