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Zimbabwean influx 'must be dealt with'
Wyndham Hartley, Business Day (SA)
September 04, 2007

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A555260

CAPE TOWN — A top immigration lawyer has entered the fray on Zimbabwean refugees, describing the influx as "rampant" and urging the government to stop burying its head in the sand and begin a process to register those crossing the border.

Last week during presidential question time in the National Assembly, President Thabo Mbeki downplayed the issue of illegal Zimbabweans crossing into SA, saying only that "some" who had crossed the border were being dealt with in terms of the law. A week earlier, home affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang said SA's liberal constitution and migration laws were being substantially abused by illegal entrants from Zimbabwe.

Gary Eisenberg, who notably challenged the Immigration Act and the then home affairs minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi in court, told Business Day the government should act "to gain some form of control over the situation."

Eisenberg said that with a reported 2000 Zimbabwean border jumpers each day, it was crucial that the government encourage these people to come forward and be documented without fear of reprisal or immediate deportation.

"While we can't technically recognise most of them as refugees under the South African Refugees Act, these people must at least be documented before they go 'underground' and fall out of the system completely," Eisenberg said. He described the Zimbabweans as economic migrants "desperately fleeing rapidly deteriorating fiscal and social conditions".

He suggested that home affairs develop some sort of visitor permit scheme in terms of the Immigration Act which could, within existing legislation, be issued to these economic refugees not ordinarily accommodated by the Refugees Act. "These permits could be issued at border-crossing points and even within SA. This would be an inclusive system, accommodating all undocumented foreigners.

"This permit could allow them to work but most of all, from a security perspective, would allow them to be documented. Undocumented foreigners account for less than 3% of the US population, but perhaps 12%- 15% of SA's, a dangerous level by any standard."

Eisenberg said the benefit of such a system would be knowing who the illegals were, what they were doing and where they were staying. "This will exercise some form of governmental control, selecting out prohibited people and allowing for others to be declared undesirables in terms of existing legislation, making deportations highly targeted. Simply deporting border jumpers and other illegals that are caught will not stop them from trying to get back into SA again and is a very wasteful exercise."

He said SA was being "inundated" with economic refugees who could not obtain refugee status because they could not prove that they would be persecuted if they returned to Zimbabwe. He also suggested an amnesty period for those already illegally in the country so that they could come forward and register. He said there was a backlog of applications of more than 100000 asylum seekers.

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