Immigration control cannot be managed by unqualified citizens

It the weekend, the police successfully stopped a potentially violent march that the leaders of Operation Dudula had organised through the streets of Johannesburg.

Operation Dudula, according to its leaders, is aimed at driving out “illegal foreigners” – as per the word dudula, or drive them back – to where they came from.

There is nothing wrong with demanding that undocumented immigrants be made to follow the country’s immigration laws but there is everything wrong with a quasi-military organisation illegally performing the tasks of immigration officials through areas with probably the highest concentration of foreign nationals in the country.

A violent outcome was guaranteed. There is nothing new in what Operation Dudula is doing. It has been done before and the results had pictures of a man being burnt alive in front of international news cameras.

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The difference with Operation Dudula is that it comes in the middle of what appears to be an officially sanctioned pushback against foreign nationals in SA. Opportunistic politicians have found a way to blame the woes of the local unemployed on foreign nationals “stealing their jobs”.

Even the normally pan-African Economic Freedom Fighters has jumped on the bandwagon of blaming all SA’s ills on undocumented foreign nationals, targeting a restaurant for allegedly only employing foreigners.

That government is now toying with the idea of job reservation and has, in some instances, started implementing it, feeds into the narrative that SA’s biggest problem is the foreign national.

News that provinces like Limpopo are not renewing contracts for foreign teachers without even making plans to fill the gaps left by maths and science teachers shows the extent of the irrationality in dealing with both unemployment and immigration challenges.

A truth that will not change: human beings will always gravitate towards better opportunities. On the continent, the SA economy, battered as it is, still presents the promise of a way out of poverty for many outsiders. Does this mean the country should become borderless and welcome all and sundry? No.

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Immigration control is necessary for economic and security purposes.

But immigration control cannot happen on the streets of Hillbrow and Yeoville under the control of unqualified citizens. Instead of going with the populist sentiment of blaming foreigners for SA’s woes, the president and his minister of home affairs must make the country’s borders less porous.

They must make it really difficult to enter the country without the right documentation. And they must rope in the minister of labour to ensure that all the checks and balances are in place for foreign nationals employed in SA.

The most common refrain of those fanning the flames of xenophobia is: “But these people are already here, that’s why we are dealing with them on the streets.” This is similar to mopping up water without closing the tap. Deal with the problem at the borders first.

No modern economy functions without importing foreign skills. South Africa must just do it the right way