Opening South Africa’s borders to facilitate the entrance and exit of Southern African Development Community residents would be disastrous, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Tuesday.
”This ‘come one, come all’ approach is likely to dramatically increase the number of people entering our borders and exacerbate existing tensions,” Zille said in a statement.
She was responding to media reports indicating that the government was considering granting concessions to migrants from neighbouring countries in order to make it easier for them to move in and out of South Africa.
This would reduce the need for people who did not obtain visas to either obtain papers or enter the country illegally, Business Day reported.
”The recent wave of xenophobic attacks is a direct result of the government’s failure to properly control immigration into South Africa,” Zille said.
”At a time like this the government should be considering ways to strengthen immigration control, not weaken it.”
Such a policy would allow ”unchecked migration” into the country and would not cause the resentment against foreigners to disappear. — Sapa