Question NW687 to the Minister of Home Affairs
22 March 2023 - NW687
van der Merwe, Ms LL to ask the Minister of Home Affairs
With regard to the briefing on the Crime Statistics reporting 7 555 persons were murdered in the three months of reporting and the huge problem added by the high number of undocumented foreign nationals that are hard to trace after having committed of a crime, what measures has his department put in place to address the growing number of undocumented foreign nationals, considering that his department is responsible for managing borders and making sure all foreign nationals within the Republic are documented?
Reply:
The BMA has trained and deployed Border Guards to various segments of the land border law enforcement areas and Ports of Entry. Their key responsibilities, amongst others, is to detect and prevent illegal persons from entering the country. Illegal foreign nationals who are apprehended in the border law enforcement area are handed over to Immigration Services who do verification of their nationality. Once the process is concluded, the deportation process will be initiated.
Inland within the borders of the Republic, the Department of Home Affairs has an Inspectorate Unit which coordinates operations with the SAPS. Persons who are apprehended by the Inspectorate Unit are processed for the verification of their status in the country. Once the status is verified and they are found to be undocumented / illegal, the process of deportation is initiated.
The Department is currently in the process of procuring handheld IT tools that will be used to remotely access and verify information on the National Population Register (NPR) in real-time. This system, which will have biometric capabilities, will assist in the verification of documents produced by people during citizenship-related operations. The budget for the procurement was received from the Criminal Asset Recovery (CARA) fund.
Further, the Department of Health has requested access to the NPR for their processes. In this regard, DHA’s IT Branch in conjunction with their counterparts at the Department of Health are looking into the request.
END