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ActionSA welcomes the withdrawal of the Department of Home Affairs’ reckless directive that sought to compel Refugee Reception Offices to accept asylum applications from undocumented persons who entered South Africa illegally. This marks yet another failure by the DA’s Minister of Home Affairs to demonstrate the leadership required to address South Africa’s immigration crisis. 

We believe that the directive should never have been issued in the first place and while its withdrawal is a necessary correction, it does nothing to resolve the broader failure of the GNU to fix our broken immigration system. 

The GNU must stop lurching from one failed decision to another and take decisive action to restore the rule of law, secure our borders and enforce immigration laws. However, as long as the government remains paralysed by a coalition that fails to take South Africa’s immigration crisis seriously, the country will remain trapped in a cycle of recurring policy failures that do nothing to resolve the crisis.

ActionSA’s guiding principle is that South African citizens must come first. We have made formal submissions proposing constitutional amendments and comprehensive immigration policy reforms that introduce firm measures to restore order, strengthen enforcement and bring South Africa’s broken immigration system under control. We call on citizens to become active participants in demanding that government reform the system, exercise their democratic power through their vote, and participate in every policy and legislative process to leave no room for the compromise of their interests.

There should be no doubt that urgent reforms responding to the legitimate concerns of South African citizens are the only way to resolve this crisis. The answer is not to police the consequences of citizens’ frustration when they engage in lawful protest, but for the government to get off its hands and do its job. Its continued failure to protect our sovereignty and enforce our immigration laws is at the heart of this crisis.

Issued by ActionSA