Asylum seekers who were given appointment dates under Home Affairs’ withdrawn directive have lost them, and the government’s replacement system will only start in November.
Acting Deputy Director-General for Immigration Services Mandla Madumisa told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs last week that the appointments fell away with the directive.
“Those appointments were part of the 28th September directive. If it’s withdrawn, they also get affected, and therefore we cannot continue with those appointments, because there will be no basis for them,” Madumisa said.
He said the department will only finish cases already captured on its system.
“The only thing that we are holding on to, to be able to process, are the cases that we could register on the system. Because they have already been processed in terms of the Refugees Act, we have an obligation to conclude on their applications.
“We will ring-fence them and be able to track them and provide a report to the department on how we have concluded or how we have processed them,” he said.
PA MP Millicent Lorato Mhlanga told the committee how many people turned up at one office.
“On Wednesday, the 7th, approximately 800 Ethiopian asylum seekers reported there. On Thursday, 600 Somali asylum seekers reported at the office. All that could be done on those dates was to give appointment dates to a fraction of these asylum seekers.
“No actual processing of asylum applications could proceed at this rate. Because of the influx, there are so many, you get a date of the 13th of September 2027,” she said.
She said the office has only four refugee reception officers to process new applications.
“What is the status of the new asylum seeker who has been given an appointment date? And what proof is given with this appointment date?” Mhlanga asked.
Madumisa said the department would go back to how it worked before the directive.
“The department therefore will continue to process asylum seeker applications through its refugee centres in line with what was in place before the 28th of September directive, and also until we are advised otherwise,” he said.
He said people who go straight to a refugee centre, without first telling law enforcement they want asylum, would struggle to be helped.
“If they were to come to the refugee centre without having approached law enforcement to indicate that intention, the refugee centres would then find it difficult to be able to attend to such a client,” Madumisa said.
Two days later, Kubayi, who chairs the inter-ministerial committee on migration, announced a new online system. Asylum seekers will register online, give biometrics, and get a receipt with an appointment at a refugee reception office. It will be phased in by 10 November.
Kubayi said the receipt is not an asylum seeker visa or refugee status. But she said officials would be told not to arrest, detain or deport receipt holders just because they lack a visa.
She said deportations “will continue, have not stopped, and will not stop”.
She also said the government will ask the court for a supervisory order and a suspension period, to give the department time to build up staff, infrastructure and processing capacity.
Madumisa did not mention the online system or the planned court application when he briefed the committee on Friday.
The department has not said whether people whose appointments were cancelled will keep their place in the queue.
The directive was issued on 28 September to give effect to the Constitutional Court’s 7 July ruling in the Scalabrini case. Home Affairs withdrew it on 9 October after refugee offices were overwhelmed and violent protests broke out in Durban and Soweto.
A full bench of the Gauteng Division of the High Court will hear arguments on how the ruling applies on 29 October.
