Policy shift ‘could lead to refugee camps’

Refugees and asylum seekers receive substantially less protection from the government than they used to when the asylum system was first established in the 1990s. This is claimed by Lawyers for Human Rights and the African Centre for Migration and Society, in a new report published last week.

The report, which monitors trends over the past two years, says South Africa has experienced a de facto policy shift in its approach to asylum seekers and refugees, although immigration policy has not been officially reviewed.

However, a policy review is imminent, raising fears among human rights groups that the country will tighten immigration at the expense of rights.

The report indicates that things are already moving in this direction. It points to several developments which illustrate this trend.

Among them are: the closure of refugee reception offices in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth and the expressed intention to relocate these at the borders; refusals and restrictions placed on specific groups of asylum seekers at points of entry on invalid grounds that they should have applied for asylum in other countries; and the refusal to grant asylum transit permits at border posts, yet insisting that applicants present such permits to gain access to refugee reception offices.

Of particular concern is the mooted relocation of refugee reception offices to border posts.

As food and shelter would be required to keep asylum seekers in border areas while their applications are processed, it is feared that this will result in "the de facto detention of asylum seekers" in refugee camps.

Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, who heads Lawyers for Human Rights’ refugee and migrants rights programme, said perceptions that South Africa was being "flooded with asylum seekers" in recent years were responsible for the hardening of attitudes and the resulting "irregular practices" by the Department of Home Affairs.

That asylum seeker numbers are constantly rising is a myth, said Mr Ramjathan-Keogh. The number of asylum seekers peaked in 2009 at 341,000 and has since dropped every year to 51,000 last year, he said.

In response to the report, Department of Home Affairs spokesman Lunga Ngqengelele said: "There has been no change in the way we treat people who come to SA. The Department of Home Affairs has had no change in policy."

Mr Ngqengelele said the reason for the closure of the refugee reception centres in major centres was because there had been numerous court cases against the department by businesses in the vicinity of the centres.

These related to the operation of reception centres within a central business district.

He said there that was "no plan to move reception offices".

However, the department did intend to establish reception offices "at borders to allow us to process asylum seekers at the point of entry".

"There is no intention to accommodate asylum seekers and refugees at the point of entry," Mr Ngqengelele said.

The department had initiated a review of immigration policy as announced by former minister of home affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma last year, he said.

• This article first appeared in Business Day on 19 February 2013