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Government's refugee plan is overkill

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Malusi Gigaba  Picture: Theana Breugem
Malusi Gigaba Picture: Theana Breugem

Government’s proposal to detain and process asylum seekers near the border, while stripping them of their rights, is a pointless waste of money if the inflow of so-called economic migrants is finally going to be managed separately.

The recent Green Paper on International Migration proposes to do both, which is unnecessary, said Zaheera Jinnah, a researcher at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand.

She was speaking at a dialogue at the Wits School of Governance, where academics presented Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba with comments on his green paper.

A major proposal in the paper is to remove an asylum seeker’s right to work and study, pending the determination of their refugee status.

It also proposes keeping them in processing centres instead of letting them integrate into South African society.

This is meant to stop the abuse of the asylum system by non-refugees, for whom another legal status is not available since they are not wealthy and do not come equipped with “critical skills”.

According to Jinnah, the proposal to introduce a new kind of visa for low-skilled workers, traders and small businesspeople from within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is “very positive”.

“We fully support this. What we should do is support legal, managed routes of entry to ensure that migrants stay safe when they cross, that they can make a full contribution to the economy without being restrained by documents or the risk of being exploited by employers – and so that the country can get a better sense of who is here,” she said.

“It affords us an opportunity to look back and correct a century of exploitation of regional workers, who formed the backbone of this economy.”

The visa plan will take South Africa closer to eventually having a continental passport and free movement for all Africans in Africa.

“By creating legal provisions for low-skilled workers, we will automatically unburden the asylum system,” Jinnah said.

“It is unnecessary to make changes to an asylum system that, in law, is widely seen as progressive and based on human rights – and is internationally applauded – especially in this time when refugees are needlessly criminalised.

“We do not want this country to spend unnecessary money on establishing processing or detention centres that the green paper makes provision for.

“From the 2011 census, we know that there are 2.17 million migrants in the country. This number might shock some of you because there are claims that there are many more migrants, that South Africa is flooded with migrants.

“The majority of them entered South Africa after 2001, and 75% of this number come from the SADC. So, we should be very clear about who we are dealing with. It is about people from the region.”

Jinnah suggested that the policy should include “recognition that low-skilled migrants are not creating a burden on the country’s services, on the labour market, on infrastructure or on security”.

“There is simply no evidence to suggest that they are creating an inordinate burden on housing or contributing to crime.”

Gavin Cawthra, a professor at the Wits School of Governance, echoed this.

“In our prisons, 4% [of prisoners] are foreign, which accords with their numbers in the population. This speaks volumes about perceptions,” he said.

The right to work, study and trade is an important right in South Africa.

It has allowed refugees and asylum seekers to be self-sufficient in a country with a massive unemployment rate.

Speaking at the same event, Gigaba said that his department was open to all criticisms and comment, which would contribute to the drafting of a white paper and, eventually, an overhaul of migration laws.

“The only thing we do not accept is if you say it [migration policy] should not be Afrocentric. South Africa is an African country,” he said.

Gigaba added that the free movement of people across the continent would not become a reality soon. However, his green paper does propose a far more accommodating regime for skilled and rich migrants, who would get rapid access to 10-year visas and permanent residence.

Cawthra said it was “disingenuous” to complain, as the green paper does, that the SADC lagged behind the east African community when it came to citizens’ mobility between member countries.

“It was us, South Africa, who took that out of the SADC protocol,” he said.

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