The Home Affairs Department said on Friday its ”hands were tied” over the flood of Zimbabweans seeking political asylum, and that a review of immigration policy was under way.
”A lot of Zimbabweans apply for asylum but they do not qualify under our present law. Our hands are tied at the moment. This is why they are expelled, because of their illegal status,” an official told Agence France-Presse.
While immigration and refugee laws do not accommodate economic migrants seeking to work in South Africa, the department said it is reviewing policies with a view to providing temporary residence to regional economic migrants.
It was reacting to calls from Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday to stop deportations of Zimbabweans and to grant them temporary shelter, saying Zimbabweans had no option but to claim asylum in order to avoid deportation.
”The Department of Home Affairs concurs with the concerns of the HRW in relation to Zimbabweans seeking to live and work in South Africa,” the department said in a statement.
”As correctly indicated by HRW, the Refugee Act does not accommodate economic migrants and as such the asylum route is not appropriate for the majority of Zimbabweans seeking employment in South Africa.”
It is estimated that about 25 000 to 30 000 Zimbabweans applied for asylum in Musina during the last five months of 2008, the New York-based rights body said.
The figure is close to double the total Zimbabwean asylum applications lodged in South Africa last year and more than half of the total number of asylum claims made by all nationalities in the same year, it said.
A 2008 HRW report said that the ”often-unlawful” deportation of more than 250 000 Zimbabweans per year meant that South Africa violated the most basic principle of refugee law, the right not to be forcibly returned to persecution. — Sapa-AFP