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CITIZENSHIP, IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE PROTECTION: WHITE PAPER GAZETTED
- 17 April 2024
- Home Affairs
- SA Legal Academy
Please note: A belated media statement on Cabinet’s ‘special’ 10 April 2024 meeting has confirmed that the White Paper was, indeed, approved that day for publication. The statement includes a brief paragraph on the paper, among other things noting the importance of protecting the country’s ‘national security interests’.
The Department of Home Affairs has gazetted a White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection as the next step in a ‘complete overhaul’ of South Africa’s ‘migration system’. Released in draft form in November 2023 for public comment, the White Paper provides a policy framework for addressing shortcomings in the prevailing system making implementation ‘cumbersome and difficult’. Apparently, the Citizenship Act, 1995, Immigration Act, 2002, and Refugees Act, 1998 (all of which have been amended from time to time) are often ‘in conflict with each other’.
Among other things, this results in:
- asylum seekers, refugees and foreign nationals ‘acquiring permanent residence status and citizenship prematurely, irregularly and inappropriately’
- criminal and human trafficking syndicates exploiting refugee and permitting systems, and
- complaints from the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals about refugee status being granted to people known to have committed atrocities in their countries of origin.
In that context, the White Paper recommends a review of South Arica’s accession to the 1951 UN Refugees Convention and 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees. This with a view either to acceding to both ‘with reservations’, as other countries have done – or withdrawing from them altogether.
According to a Department of Home Affairs media statement on the White Paper, Cabinet approved it on 10 April 2024 during what appears to have been an out-of-cycle meeting. The statement draws attention to various impending interventions likely to entail new legislation. They include:
- abolishing the relative’s visa, corporate visa and intra-company visa
- introducing limited-duration permanent residence visas linked to minimum investment
- introducing e-visas for tourists and remote work visas, and
- replacing the South African Citizenship Act, 1995, and the Births & Deaths Registration Act, 1992, with a single piece of legislation dealing with citizenship, immigration and refugee protection.
Please click the links below for more information:
- White Paper
- UN convention and protocol
- Department of Home Affairs media statement
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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