Aligning South Africa’s migration policies with its African vision

The document identifies a significant gap between South Africa's stated goal of harnessing the strategic potential of African migration and its implementation of restrictive policies. While the Department of Home Affairs has proposed progressive measures like SADC visas and regularisation schemes, these have stalled. Instead, the government is fast-tracking the Border Management Authority Bill and the Refugees Amendment Act of 2017, and pursuing the construction of expensive asylum processing centres. The author argues that these measures are based on unsubstantiated claims that low-skilled migrants and asylum seekers pose security risks, and that they distract from endemic administrative corruption and management failures within the Department of Home Affairs.

• There is a contradiction between South Africa's foreign policy goals and its migration management, where the state expresses a desire for an African-centred approach but prioritises restrictive measures that negatively affect migrants from neighbouring countries.
• The Department of Home Affairs has proposed progressive interventions, such as SADC visa options for economic migrants and regularisation schemes for nationals of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, and Lesotho, but implementation of these measures has stalled.
• The government is prioritising the creation of asylum processing centres on land borders, which the author describes as de facto detention centres. These centres are estimated to cost between R266 million and R298 million each to build, excluding operational costs.
• The Department of Home Affairs claims that the asylum system is primarily abused by economic migrants, but the document argues this is not supported by the data; for example, in 2015, only 62,000 people applied for asylum out of 1.44 million people who remained in the country.
• The document asserts that there is no evidence that migrants pose an elevated national security risk, and that the government's 'risk-based approach'—which includes the militarisation of borders via the Border Management Authority Bill—is a distraction from actual threats.
• Administrative failures and corruption within the Department of Home Affairs are being ignored or blamed on migrants; some estimates suggest as many as 85% of staff members participate in corrupt practices.

APA

Mbiyozo, A.-N. (2018). Aligning South Africa’s migration policies with its African vision. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb117.pdf

Chicago

Mbiyozo, Aimée-Noël. Aligning South Africa’s migration policies with its African vision. Institute for Security Studies, 2018. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb117.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Mbiyozo |first1=Aimée-Noël |title=Aligning South Africa’s migration policies with its African vision |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=October 2018 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb117.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{mbiyozo2018aligning, author = {Mbiyozo, Aimée-Noël}, title = {{Aligning South Africa’s migration policies with its African vision}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2018}, month = oct, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/pb117.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }