Home Affairs’ ineffectiveness fuels illegal immigration
20 June 2018
Today, to mark World Refugee Day, the DA engaged with the Somali refugee community in Durban in Kwa Zulu Natal where we had an opportunity to speak with asylum-seekers, refugees and the Durban-based Somali Association.
While the Director-General of the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), Mkhuseni Apleni, has desperately attempted to paint a rosy picture of the state of affairs in the department, our engagements today revealed a vastly different side of the story from the people who have interacted with the department.
The ANC government cannot claim that all is well at the DHA. The Department is riddled with inefficiencies and is directly contributing to illegal immigration. Too many refugees and asylum seekers have been victimised in the process of trying to present themselves to Home Affairs in order to be properly documented, and to have their cases fairly, lawfully and timeously adjudicated.
The DA has been conducting oversight visits to Refugee Reception Offices (RRO) around the country in order to see first-hand the effects of the closures of the Cape Town and Port Elizabeth Reception Offices. Both RRO’s remain closed despite court orders instructing that they be re-opened. The tardiness of the department in complying with these orders has caused immense hardship to asylum seekers, often constraining their ability to renew their documentation in time.