They won't have to carry dom pass like the apartheid days but they need to have some sort of identification. This was said by Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi addressing the issue of illegal immigrants during a briefing with his committee. He was briefing them on the backlog in permit appeals for asylum seekers and refugees.During his briefing Motsoaledi gave SAPS the go ahead to do regular checks of documents to check wether immigrants were in the country legally.
He said the checks will be within the law.
"Police have the right to do spot checks of documents. They don't have to be in physical form like in the apartheid days, there will be no need to carry them everywhere they go,"said Motsoaledi
SPOT CHECKS
He said technology will allow the checks to be done on the spot and it will be unfortunate if it has to get to the point where manual papers are required. "Documents will be checked against the national population register. it will be a pity if the police don't get what they want because they will have to arrest immediately." Of 178,000 holders, only 4,000 had applied for visas to legalise their stay in SA. Motsoaledi said, “I wouldn’t say they’re showing us the middle finger. I’d say they have been convinced by these court cases that they shouldn’t bother applying because they believe this matter is going to be thrown out by the courts.”
STOPPED FROM SA BORDERS
Previously, Motsoaledi said Zimbabweans did not bother to apply for visas after the department extended the Zimbabwean Exemption Permits (ZEP) deadline until 30 June 2023. However, some Zimbabweans who were trying to leave South Africa at the Beitbridge Border were recently being stopped from returning, because they don’t have valid documents. This is possibly the result of the introduction of 200 armed Border Management Authority (BMA) guards in Musina, Limpopo. The guards are deployed at five “identified vulnerable parts” of the border and work with members of the South African National Defence Force. The BMA will be South Africa’s single authority for border management and is expected to be fully set up by April 2023. Motsoaledi said four refugee centres had been reopened after a two-year closure due to Covid-19. They are in Durban, Pretoria, Gqeberha and Musina. The Cape Town refugee office will be reopened by the end of September.
