Members the Inter-ministerial Committee on Migration (IMC) have revealed that the majority of undocumented foreign nationals in the country do not qualify for either refugee or asylum status.
The number of foreign nationals that have been processed for deportation and repatriation to their countries of origin in the past few weeks increased to over 53 000.
According to the UN, about 250 000 refugees and asylum seekers live in South Africa.
These are separate from documented or undocumented foreign nationals in the country for other reasons, including those seeking better economic opportunities.
The IMC held a press briefing in Hatfield, Pretoria.
Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, “Majority of the countries that we are finding their nationals or citizens in the country illegally do not even qualify to apply for either refugee or asylum status in this country. We discussed the pull and the push factors for the illegal immigration into South Africa, of the instability that makes the government not being able to protect their own nationals. That’s why part of the challenge that we have had is people who do not even have a passport to start with, not that they have expired. Because even the cost of the documentation is not on the South African side. The cost of the documentation is in their own countries – applying for that documentation.”
The IMC also says members of the African Union need to commit to ensuring political stability in their own countries for economic development. The IMC says the instability of South Africa’s neighbouring countries significantly compounds problems for the country’s immigration system.
“We continue to mobilize our companies to invest within the region and within the continent to make sure that the development and the industrialization of the region and the continent is at a fast pace. But all of us as governments who are members of the AU, we need to commit to ensure conditions in our own countries that allow political stability, political certainty, and conducive conditions for economic development,” adds Ntshavheni.
Meanwhile, t
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