South Africa’s immigration proposals are based on false claims and poor logic – experts
By Loren B Landau - Co-Director of the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab, University of the Witwatersrand and Rebecca Walker - Research Associate at the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand
The South African government recently issued a long-awaited policy statement – called a
White Paper – outlining proposed changes to the country’s asylum and immigration system. More than 20 years after its first post-apartheid immigration legislation
in 1998, immigration remains a
pressing concern. Getting this policy right could help with South Africa’s economic recovery, increase regional prosperity, and heighten security for citizens and migrants alike.
Human rights advocates will decry proposals to relocate the processing of asylum applications to the border and to narrow immigrants’ channels to permanent residency and citizenship. The stated imperative to “develop a well-coordinated strategy of tracking down illegal foreigners” will raise their hackles. Anti-immigrant activists and leaders will say the proposals
do not go far enough.
Collectively we have
studied immigration policy and practice in South Africa and elsewhere for almost 40 years. Based on this experience, we find that the White Paper does not provide an empirical foundation for effective, developmental policy reform.
False claims and lapses of logic
What is most unsettling about the paper is how the government invents its own social reality, and then offers vague and poorly considered proposals to solve nonexistent problems.
Case in point: the document states that 150,997 people in South Africa have been granted citizenship by naturalisation (presumably since the 2002
Immigration Act). This number is used to justify radically narrowing pathways to citizenship. Yet, this figure represents less than 0.2% of the country’s population of
62 million.
The suggestion that citizenship is easily accessed – especially through the asylum process – is bizarre. This could only happen if asylum cases were effectively processed.
They are not.
The White Paper reaches its tragi-comic apex by including a substantial list of legal cases that civil society has won against the Department of Home Affairs for
not enforcing its own laws. The cases are supposedly so numerous that
there are several instances wherein the DHA has been slapped with court orders of which it has not been aware of the proceedings.
Rather than bring itself into line, the department wants the law altered to prevent these court challenges. And it argues that without legal reform, scapegoating and violence against immigrants will continue.
The White Paper reasons that excluding immigrants from South Africa will protect them by making Home Affairs more legally compliant, and South Africans more tolerant and welcoming.
The White Paper suggests that strict laws are needed “to protect the rights” of South African citizens against “the harsh realities” that there are simply not enough resources for everyone. Yet the question is: what exactly do South Africans need to be protected from?
Misplaced blame
Missing too from the White Paper is a grounded discussion of how mobility and immigration schemes can meet skills gaps, promote investment, and create jobs across the region. Whether in the
US or
South Africa, most careful research suggests immigration has positive economic effects.
Instead, the White Paper offers an almost Soviet style programme where experts will designate entry requirements based on predictions of needed skills. The unpredictability of the regional economy, the high economic and human costs of state-managed labour systems, and the diplomatic benefits of a more regionally integrated labour market suggest another model is needed.
Imagined problems, impractical solutions
The White Paper does not outline an approach to improve immigration policy. Its proposals are vague and the problems it seeks to solve are not about immigration.
Both examples point to a government lacking capacity to empirically analyse the world and develop solutions to real problems. If not that, they suggest a government wilfully deceiving its citizenry: making immigrants the scapegoat for its own failings. Given the content of the White Paper, it is likely both.
This article previously appeared on The Conversation, it has been re-published on JoburgPost.com with permission.
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