Johannesburg - An American doctor and her three children have avoided deportation after spending a day in detention at OR Tambo International Airport for not complying with the new visa regulations.
Martina Mookadam and her children, aged 10, 14 and 15, were refused entry for not having unabridged birth certificates and a police affidavit upon their arrival at the airport on Monday, Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman said on Tuesday.
“(The husband) accompanied his family to the UK and was travelling to South Africa with them when he got called back urgently to treat a patient from the royal family of one of the Middle Eastern states,” he said.
The couple both work at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona in the US.
The family were due to be deported on a flight at 7.20pm on Monday and immigration officials reportedly refused to budge when Mookadam offered to get a stamped letter signed by her husband sent from a police station in the US.
According to Sooliman, the family were released at about 6pm after a senior Home Affairs official intervened.
New immigration laws that came into effect on June 1 require that all minors travelling to and from South Africa be in possession of an unabridged birth certificate in addition to a passport and visa. They are also required to provide a certified letter of permission from the other parent if the child is travelling with only one of them.
Sooliman said this kind of incident would be bad for South Africa’s tourism industry.
“The South African family of the American physician were not permitted to see her, no rational explanation was entertained by Department of Home Affairs officials, she was not told which flight she was being deported on, and the general attitude and body language of officials was just negative,” he said.
Home Affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said they had every right to deny visitors entry if they did not have the correct documents. “If you don’t have all your documents, we have the right to refuse you until we can verify your documents.”
The family were allowed into the country after Home Affairs contacted the US Embassy.
The Star