DAVID LEWIS | SA’s migrant impasse demands a solution beyond mass deportation

So, we’ve dodged the bullet this time, have we? I suppose, apart from those who fled the country, had their property looted or destroyed, had their lives threatened or were killed, the country breathed a sigh of relief when the June 30 deadline for illegal immigrants to leave the country passed without any major further loss of life or property.

President Cyril Ramaphosa must be relieved at the outcome. He rushed around in the days before the deadline, speaking to traditional leaders, faith leaders and anyone else who’d help him calm a volatile situation. He met with some of the protest leaders.

He solemnly affirmed his commitment to the rule of law, to the right of peaceful protest and to the “legitimacy” of the protesters’ grievances. His words were backed up by an enormous deployment of police who managed to sort of behave themselves.

The anti-immigrant leaders will also count this as a victory. They brought out tens of thousands of supporters — more than any political party or trade union could muster — who, under their leadership, behaved with greater restraint than on previous occasions. They secured a meeting with the president and the recognition of their leadership and organisational legitimacy that it implied.

But the solution proffered by the marchers is unchanged and, for the most part, shared with all political leadership and parties, who will fear the likelihood that the passions underlying this issue will enable the march leaders to influence the votes of their supporters. So they too unanimously advocate for the expulsion of the undocumented and sealing of the borders. And if many documented immigrants are caught up in the mayhem, well, too bad; they’re also foreigners after all.

We’re not the only country grappling with a migrant influx. It dominates political conversation in Europe and Britain. The US is preoccupied with defending its southern border from the invading hordes banging at the door and with identifying foreign states who will, for a fee, accept those who managed to get through it.

We’re not the only country grappling with a migrant influx.

The MAGA base that elected President Donald Trump, inflamed by their idol’s vivid imagery (“they’re eating the dogs … they’re eating the cats"), demands the removal of all undocumented immigrants, although opposition to the vicious measures that the Republican administration employs in its hopeless quest to remove millions of immigrants partly accounts for a sharp drop in Trump’s approval ratings.

In South Africa, all major political parties vary only in the method that they propose for effecting mass deportation. Gayton McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance and Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA would have them rounded up, Trump-style, and dumped at the border posts of their countries.

The ANC and the DA huff and puff about tightening up border management, eradicating corruption in the department of home affairs, deporting undocumented immigrants and punishing those who employ undocumented immigrants.

All agree that concern about the influx of undocumented migrants is a problem and that the marchers’ grievances are well founded and “legitimate”.

There are some cautionary voices. EFF leader Julius Malema and a prominent Mpumalanga traditional leader have wisely warned of the tribal polarisation and the “othering” of foreigners that it may generate in South Africa. A tweet from a marcher reading “we are pleading with you, government; please remove that Natal. We are Zulu and reside in KwaZulu, under King Misuzulu”, may portend an ugly future. After all, what gives non-Zulu the right to work in the home of the Zulu?

Intractable as this problem appears to be, there’s a solution.

First, ask yourself whether immigration is actually a problem. The notion that immigrants contribute disproportionately to crime and drug dealing is regularly debunked by the police and correctional services data and doesn’t bear serious consideration. This claim is the product of sheer bigotry.

Nor are migrants responsible for our dysfunctional public health and education services, where the principal problems clearly reside on the supply side, rather than the demand side.

The impact of uncontrolled immigration on employment warrants more serious consideration. It seems intuitively obvious to conclude that every immigrant working in South Africa equates to one South African who is denied employment.

However, the received wisdom is that here and elsewhere migration is a net creator of employment. This is true of those migrants from East Africa and South Asia who arrive with generations’ worth of trading experience and supplier networks — if you doubt this, then visit the Ethiopian markets of downtown Johannesburg. It’s equally true of those from the southern African region who establish small artisanal and trading businesses.

Labour interests complain that employers prefer undocumented migrants because their vulnerability makes them more likely than South African job-seekers to undercut regulated wages and working conditions. This is undoubtedly true, although it may apply in near equal measure to a South African work-seeker desperate for employment. In any event, it is the employer who should be held accountable for violating labour market regulations, regardless of the citizenship of the employees in question.

Then ask yourself whether the solutions proffered will work. They won’t. Official estimates of the number of undocumented migrants in South Africa range between 500,000 and 1-million. It’s likely to be a lot greater than this.

In the week of deadly threat and much action on the part of law enforcement, it seems that about 150,000 migrants have either fled or have been deported. I’ll bet many of those will have already returned, and the rest will return when the temperature recedes.

Just as immigrants in Europe have been prepared to risk sea crossings and those from Latin America have trudged across deserts to get into the US, so too will sub-Saharan Africans continue to assume huge personal risk to enter the cities and towns of South Africa. Odds are that they will find a community, indeed someone from the same neighbourhood or village, who will welcome them and assist them to settle in, who will even have persuaded them to try their luck in Johannesburg or Cape Town.

Nor will corruption be eliminated. Undocumented immigrants are too vulnerable to resist extortion — and officials are too powerful to desist from it.

There’s only one solution. Let them in. And let them work. But incentivise them to enter South Africa through official ports of entry. This will be achieved by making the entry requirements as least threatening and least exclusionary as possible. No more should be required of an immigrant than furnishing an identity document from their country of origin, proof of a clean criminal record and a biometric or fingerprint record.

There’s only one solution. Let them in. And let them work. But incentivise them to enter South Africa through official ports of entry.

Under these circumstances, it can be reasonably inferred that anyone found in the country who has not entered through an official port of entry and who is thus undocumented should be summarily deported.

Pie in the sky? No more so than those who advocate that policing the border and eradicating corruption will do the trick. Certainly, no more so than those who believe that an African identity magically transcends the national borders and identities of the continent and that the violence against foreigners is the product of some elaborate intelligence agency construct.

Maybe a more workable solution is possible if courageous leaders start a public conversation now instead of waiting for a week before the next uprising. The Jacob Zumas, Gayton McKenzies and Herman Mashabas — the true xenophobes — will oppose the solution proposed here and exploit the apparently easy answers to win the votes of the poor and insecure.

Just as a previous generation of South African leaders rose above the noise to think the unthinkable, so too are courage and foresight required now.

• Lewis, a former trade unionist, academic, policymaker, regulator and company board member, was a cofounder and director of Corruption Watch.