Hundreds of residents took to the streets of Mthatha on Wednesday, joined by non-governmental and civic organisations, to demand the deportation of illegal immigrants and priority for local small business owners in rural towns and cities. Police maintained a presence, and the march remained peaceful.
Protesters called for South Africa’s immigration laws to be amended, arguing that the country’s borders are too porous.
“We want to send a straight message to government that we are not happy about the application of the illegal immigration,” said one organiser. “The immigration laws of South Africa are a problem in our borders. It is wide open and here there is a competition of resources that we don’t have. We need to share with these people that are here. Even those that have papers, some of them accessed those papers fraudulently and we want that to be spelled out by government.”
Organisers further alleged that illegal immigrants contribute to high levels of drug abuse, human trafficking, prostitution, and building hijackings. “They can come into the country, they bring drugs, they bring human trafficking, prostitution, they are unhealthy, unhygienic, they hijack buildings, they do all kinds of crime in the country,” the organiser said. “It’s quite sad to live in a country like this.”
Civic organisations said the influx of illegal immigrants in rural areas is uncontrollable and poses a danger to children. “The issue that we have is the influx of illegal immigrants in our country,” a civic representative stated. “Subsequent to that, they go down to the provinces. They go to our towns. They go to our locations. They go to our rural areas. We are flooded. We cannot breathe. All of this is because these illegal immigrants have been let free by this current government and all of its institution. We are here to send a strong message: the government cannot help us. We’re going to rise up and fix this thing.”
Traditional leaders also joined the call, urging government to intensify immigration laws and deport all illegal immigrants who have populated rural areas. “It’s sad to see the illegal immigrants coming to our country and destroying our kids by giving them drugs and also this extortion that they are doing by taking our buildings over and also having spaza shops and those puzzle shops – you’ll find that they don’t have permits for those puzzle shops,” a traditional leader said.
Government officials received a memorandum of demands from the people and promised to hand it over to the relevant government departments.
Meanwhile, King Sabata Dalindyebo Municipality spokesperson confirmed that operations are being conducted to close illegal spaza shops. “When we do our operations, we did find out especially those that are operating spaza shops… Some of the things that they have raised are things that we know, that we’ve also experienced, whereby people are actually sleeping inside their shops,” the spokesperson said. “They are undocumented, they don’t have business licenses. We then come with public safety and also home affairs to ensure that they do take them for deportation if they are due for deportation.”
The municipality called on the national government to revisit immigration laws and deport all illegal immigrants in the country.