The Department of Home Affairs has extended the deadline for public comments on the highly-contested White Paper on Citizenship, Immigration and Refugee Protection.

Comments on the White Paper originally had to be submitted by Friday, 19 January.

However, various organisations and individuals called for a delay due to the festive period. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has thus extended the deadline to Wednesday, 31 January.

The White Paper seeks to amend the South African Citizenship Act, which Motsoaledi called a ‘relic of the colonial era’.

One primary aim is to review the laws which prohibit the government from refusing entry, expelling, or extraditing asylum seekers and refugees.

The White Paper proposes that the government review and/or withdraw from the 1951 United Convention on Refugees, the 1967 Protocol and the 1969 African Union Refugee Convention, which the government said have inhibited its ability to deal with what it has deemed a “migration crisis.”

Overall, there are roughly 2.4 million foreign-born residents in South Africa, as per the 2022 Census from Stats SA.

Other proposals include:

• A repeal of South Africa’s citizenship, refugee and immigration acts to be replaced with a singular law.

• An overhaul of a “nightmare” immigration system that includes 17 different types of visas. Border management, citizenship, and immigration laws would be streamlined.

• South Africa wants to set up an advisory board on immigration with representatives from the departments of trade, labour and employment, tourism, police service, revenue services, defence, and home affairs, among others.

• The board should also have four representatives from the private sector, with expertise in administration, regulatory matters and immigration law, to be appointed by the Home Affairs minister.

Criticisms

However, Rebecca Walker and Loren B Landau from the University of the Witwatersrand said that the White Paper does not outline an approach to improve South Africa’s immigration policy, as its proposals are vague and the problems it seeks to solve are not about immigration.

Although the White Paper states that strict laws are needed to protect the rights of South African citizens as there are not enough resources to share with migrants, Walker and Landau stated that this is just a smokescreen to distract voters from the government’s failures amidst a rise in inequalities and socio-economic challenges.

“Immigration can be a challenge. But this does not explain why South Africans spend days without light, water, jobs, or hope of addressing economic inequality. Immigrants are not the reason why the health service is failing, or infrastructure is crumbling. And immigrants are not responsible for most of the country’s crime,” the experts said.

Comments on the White Paper can be submitted to [email protected].

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