Immigration

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is in the throes of developing a new White Paper on International Migration.  The major problem cited of the existing policy is its inability to enable the country to adequately embrace global opportunities while safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring public safety and national security.

The Department is also looking at getting input from Parliament on the Green Paper because the country’s formal international immigration policy had remained in place since 1999 despite significant changes in the country, region and world.

The new policy has to take account of the following: The National Development Plan says that South Africa needs to adopt a more open approach to skilled immigration to enable expansion of high-skill supply for the economy in a manner that obviated displacement of South Africans; and South Africa has become a platform for investment into Africa. South African companies are also increasingly expanding their businesses into Africa and other continents. The new policy ought to be responsive to the African development agenda, promote human rights, contribute to nation-building and social cohesion and support emigration for development purposes.

The existing policy on residency and naturalisation is also being reviewed as it allowed holders of visas to automatically graduate to permanent residency and later to citizenship on the grounds of years spent in the country. Concerning the management of international migrants with skills and capital, the existing policy limited the country’s ability to compete internationally for skills and investment. Therefore, the new policy will focus on attracting and retaining high-valued migrants; including fast-tracking the granting of permanent residence permits and naturalisation.

The bugbear of the DHA is the management of asylum seekers and refugees because of high volumes of mixed migration flows where some people utilise the asylum regime to regularise their stay in the country. The new policy will correct thisby protecting genuine asylum seekers and refugees while limiting the abuse of the system. Some lawmakers felt that national security had to be taken seriously and expressed firm support for the control and management of mixed migration.  He was adamant about the situation of illegal foreigners and felt that their free movement should be made difficult as that would address the problem of illegality. Others point out that foreign nationals made vital contributions to the economy and were saddened by the xenophobic approach of the government.