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Inside Illegality: Migration Policing in South Africa after Apartheid

Literature › Works

Jonathan Klaaren; Jaya Ramji (2001). Inside Illegality: Migration Policing in South Africa after Apartheid. Africa Today, Vol. 48, No. 3 (special issue: Evaluating South African Immigration Policy after Apartheid). Indiana University Press.
Type journal article
Scope Post-1994 South African economy
Method policy analysis
Period studied 1991–2000
Regions South Africa, Gauteng (Johannesburg: Hillbrow, Berea), Lindela Repatriation Centre, Krugersdorp, South Africa-Mozambique border, South Africa-Zimbabwe
Themes transition post apartheid, bantustans removals influx, politics ideology elections, mining migrant labour, demography urbanisation
Citation key klaaren2001

Argument

The authors argue that post-apartheid migration policing has changed little from apartheid-era practice. The Aliens Control Act of 1991 gives police, army and Home Affairs wide discretion and entrenches the symbolic and institutional illegality of undocumented migrants. Policing combines border control with intrusive internal tracing, and it is fragmented, corrupt and rights-abusing. Operation Crackdown (March 2000) is the lead case, and the authors also draw on a comparison with Calavita's account of Spain. They predict that the pending Draft Immigration Bill will leave these features largely intact.

Evidence and method

Human Rights Watch (1998) and SAHRC (1999) reports, including a detainee testimony (Nelsa); Home Affairs annual reports (removal statistics 1994-1999); SAPS annual reports; Klaaren (1997) on arrests by agency; press and Sapa reports; a December 1997 research visit to Lindela; the Constitutional Court's Dawood judgment; and the text of the legislation.

Findings

  • Operation Crackdown replicated apartheid pass-law style policing, targeting black immigrant areas and checking papers. (p. 3)

    Operation Crackdown focused on areas predominantly populated by black immi- grants, and on whether individuals in these areas had the proper "passes" or immigration papers.

  • Mass arrests in Johannesburg far exceeded Lindela's design capacity. (p. 3)

    The majority of the over 7,000 detained were sent to Lindela despite the fact that the facility was only designed to hold approximately 4,500 persons at maximum capacity.

  • The 1995 amendments to the Aliens Control Act were minor and aimed at tightening control rather than a constitutional audit. (p. 5)

    Overall, the 1995 amendment legislation was not presented in Parliament as having the primary purpose of effecting a constitutional audit. Instead, the primary purpose was the tightening up of control

  • The 30-day detention review safeguard was almost never applied in practice. (p. 5)

    On 4 December 1997, a research visit to the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp revealed that all twenty-seven persons there had been detained beyond the thirty-day limit

  • The concept of the 'prohibited person' makes illegality a status against the law, which strips legal standing. (p. 7)

    As understood, the concept of prohibited persons means that such persons are without legal standing as persons.

  • Removals rose sharply after 1994 and then plateaued at a high level. (p. 7)

    In 1994, the removal figure for "illegal aliens" was 90,692. In 1995, it jumped sharply to 157,084. In 1996, the figure increased significantly again to 180,713.

  • Agencies were poorly coordinated, and the national coordinating structure (NIDS) was judged ineffective. (p. 9)

    Instead of coordination, the border control system exhibits a situation of systemic crisis and is unlikely to sort itself out, at least within the foreseeable future.

  • Police use irrational markers to identify 'illegals', and a notable share of those detained were lawful (small sample). (p. 9)

    ten percent of detainees at the Lindela Detention and Repatriation Centre were released after arrest but prior to intake because they had lawful status in South Africa.

  • Migration policing is lucrative and politically convenient for state agents. (p. 12)

    The business of migration control has proved to be a lucrative one for employees of the SAPS, the SANDF, and the DHA, providing bribe money, increased statistics

  • The two-gates system for temporary labour is said to persist, as one mechanism producing illegality. (p. 6)

    (d) the essential continuation of the "two-gates" system for temporary labor in South Africa