POLOKWANE – Despite Home Affairs immigration services having arrested and reportedly deported some illegal immigrants in Seshego’s Ext 71-78 recently, many still return to be housed by homeowners, in leased backrooms.
That is according to local youths, who have expressed worry that the fairly new township is increasingly becoming overcrowded by undocumented immigrants, something they say contribute to the crime rate in the area.
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The ward councillor, Makhasane Mabote submitted a petition to the department months back, with residents calling for the removal of illegal immigrants, although their wish had been that undocumented immigrants should be deported instead as it is hard to trace who commits crimes in the area, according to community leader, Joe Tladi.
The organised youth group complain that foreigners’ presence in the area has visibly increased again, barely two months since the robust exercise.
“It is hypocritical that residents who complain of cable theft, robberies, and shots being fired at random hours, are the very ones who rent out their properties,” they say. They also blame Mabote for not questioning those who did so, or even sell RDP houses to undocumented immigrants.
Recently, the area’s station commander, Col Maimele Pilusa said all residents should take cognisance of who they keep in their homes, and advised against being free- spirited with leasing or hiring foreign nationals as they could very well be inviting criminals.
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One of them, who works for a local school in the area told BONUS that some children are not rightfully documented, after consistent requests for verification of identity information from parents yielded little success.
“The school has roughly 1 500 children of which 500 are foreign nationals. From that figure, over half seems to be undocumented because as their parents don’t provide these documents. We fear that rightful citizens will lose out on adequate resources due to unscrupulous people.”
Last week, a man believed to be a foreign national was shot elsewhere and brought to his leased room in Ext 71, where drugs, alcohol and a bullet were found by his friends. He was described as someone who was notoriously known in the community.
Meanwhile, Minister Aaron Motsoaledi in May said that government proposed the establishment of specialised court to deal with immigration in South Africa.
Speaking in parliament, Motsoaledi said his department was working on new, single legislation to address the growing immigration problem.
This comes amid a high court challenge to government’s decision to not extend the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) when it ends on June 30. This however did not succeed as it had been extended to December last week.
“The number of illegal foreigners in South Africa is very high,” Motsoaledi is quoted as saying, “and the current practice of migrants challenging unfavourable decisions in drawn-out court procedures would be discouraged in the new legislation.”
In April, the Helen Suzman Foundation stated that Motsoaledi did not consider the harmful impact of his decision to end the ZEP.
The court heard three separate applications on the permits, which have allowed 178 000 Zimbabweans to lawfully live in South Africa since 2009.
They were first introduced in response to a political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe that caused an exodus into South Africa. The permit regime was twice extended, in 2014 and 2017, but the government said it was always clear that these permits were a temporary measure.
