Nearly 4 000 quit SA after xeno attacks

Some of the estimated 10 000 people that marched during an anti-xenophobia peace march in Durban.

Some of the estimated 10 000 people that marched during an anti-xenophobia peace march in Durban.

Published May 6, 2015

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Cape Town - Some 3 700 immigrants from African states volunteered to be deported following the deadly wave of xenophobic unrest in the country, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said on Wednesday, adding that he expected many to return.

 “We have an estimated 3700 people who have left the country voluntarily,” Gigaba told a media briefing in Cape Town ahead of his department’s budget vote in Parliament. “Do we expect them to return? I think so, I think they will return.

“Whether those with documents or those without documents and that is why it was so important for us to take their biometric data and to register them. So that if they did have documents, we can deal with that. If they did not have documents we can deport them again.”

Home affairs officials said the majority of foreign nationals who left the country voluntarily in response to the xenophobic violence that spread from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng last month were from Malawi, Somalia and Zimbabwe, and were illegal immigrants.

Gigaba said government would continue deporting undocumented foreigners. In an echo of recent remarks by President Jacob Zuma, the minister added that neighbouring states were partly responsible for the influx of undocumented job-seekers to South Africa.

He singled out fellow members of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community, saying that since their nationals did not need visas to travel to South Africa it meant that their governments had failed to issue them with passports if they were found to be in South Africa illegally.

“The programme of involuntary documentation is ongoing. If you do not have documents to be in South Africa we will deport you.”

“This is a problem that does not depend on South Africa on its own. We need our neighbouring countries to pay attention: One, to the documentation of their nationals; Two, to the development of the economies of our neighbouring countries so that people can have economic opportunities in their countries of origin and less incentive to move through irregular means towards South Africa.

“But then why do you have SADC nationals in South Africa as undocumented immigrants? It means that their countries have not provided them with the relevant documentation.”

The problem went beyond that though, Gigaba continued, in that the main drawing card for African migrants flooding to South Africa was the perception of economic opportunity.

“Generally speaking, what attracts people to South Africa is not only the strength of our constitutional democracy and political system but it is, above everything else, the strength of our economy. People feel that they can come here and then fight for a living, and it creates challenges of its own.

“That is why, whilst we may continue to deport, we need to close the loopholes in the law. with regards to economic immigrants.”

He said the department planned to spend some R118 million over the next three years on employing immigration inspectors, and government would take tougher action against companies found to be illegally employing foreigners.

“Not just to detect undocumented migrants but to inspect companies that employ undocumented immigrants and those without work visas so that we can prosecute those companies to discourage them from doing what they are doing.

“What we need to pay attention to is what it is in our policies and systems that encourages companies to employ foreign nationals, low-skilled or unskilled, outside the framework of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.”

On Freedom Day, amid a diplomatic row with Nigeria over Abuja’s decision to recall its high commissioner for consultations in response to the xenophobic unrest, Zuma said African nations needed to ask themselves why their nationals were coming to South Africa in numbers.

 

ANA

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