All countries aim to have secure borders

I FEEL Mr Thomas is being disingenuous when he says it is distressing to read a letter about the virtues of electric fencing and armed guards (Cape Times, March 30).

This refers to my letter so I feel a reply is needed. I hated apartheid and worked in the best way I knew as a white person, to get the Nat government out.

At long last we are able to say we are a democracy. But keeping our borders secure has nothing to do with apartheid. I am in the process of getting an Australian visa and it’s like sitting the worst exam. I can’t just fly into Australia. All countries have borders, and we have seen the damaging effect of our porous borders.

He says how can one hate apartheid but not hate xenophobia. I hate xenophobia as well, but once again this has nothing to do with keeping our borders secure. Xenophobia has raised its ugly head because of our porous borders.

He says our borders were imposed by imperialistic forces. Please, Mr Thomas. As I’ve said, no country in the world just allows people across its borders without the relevant papers and visas.

If we had kept our borders secure we wouldn’t have this mess we are in now, with local people taking their frustration out on foreigners.

I agree with Mr Thomas when he says closing our borders now does nothing to address the root causes of the problem. It is like closing the stable door once the horse has bolted.

Millions of foreigners who have crossed our borders illegally are here in South Africa.

So home affairs now has the problem of sorting out the illegals from the legals, and to give asylum to those in real need.

But due to the overwhelming numbers and the fact that home affairs takes months to sort out something as easy as applying for a birth certificate, we are seeing people on the ground taking things into their own hands.

This could all have been avoided if we had kept our borders secure, as they were before we removed the fences. BARBIE SANDLER |