The Corona Virus and Migration Governance in South Africa: Business As Usual?

Introduction

As the global Corona pandemic continues to spread around the world, it is anything but business as usual. ¹ Over four million people have now tested positive for the virus, and countries all over the world are taking measures from border closures to lockdowns to try to stem the increase in infections. South Africa was the first country on the African continent to impose a lockdown from midnight on 26 March of this year. The quick response has been applauded internationally (Harding, 2020). Implications of such a lockdown in a country already in a period of economic downturn are worrying however, with access to food threatened, social distance and quarantining in the many townships a feat of impossibility and the violent clampdown of the South African Police Service (SAPS) to enforce the lockdown only likely to make matters worse (e.g. Kiewit, 2020; PLAAS, 2020). Like elsewhere in the world , if South Africa wants to flatten the curve of infections and save lives, it needs to speak to the realities and people living in the country, including migrant and refugee communities. For the Corona virus does not distinguish according to passport or citizenship. Hence, for matters of public health, countries must also consider those usually pushed to the margins of society.

Some countries have taken this seriously, with Portugal leading the way by temporarily granting all migrants and asylum seekers full citizenship rights to enable unhindered access to healthcare services. Many countries have, however, persisted with policies that lock out refugees and migrants from critical services while also continuing with costly deportations in the midst of worldwide travel bans (Reidy, 2020). What has become abundantly clear is that our very perceptions and practices of addressing issues of migration, mobility and refuge are intractably tied up in the evolving pandemic (e.g. Landau, 2020; Shiferaw and Mucchi, 2020).

States are fundamental to protecting refugees and implementing migration governance, yet especially in the African setting we still know too little about how choices are made at the state level and what stakes play a role (Bakewell and Jónsson, 2013; Milner, 2009). Previous research has highlighted, that, like elsewhere, African states instrumentalise migrants and refugees as security threats or scapegoats for economic woes and increasingly restrictive policies are applied to both immigration (e.g. Adepoju, 2011; Whitaker and Clark, 2018) and refugees (e.g. Rwamatwara, 2005). However, research about how migration and refugee policies are made, unfold and are contested remains limited. The reflections in this article are part of an ongoing research project which seeks to close this gap by considering the political stakes and societal discourse related to migration governance in (and across) four cases in Sub-Saharan Africa, namely South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. ² We draw on empirical material from thirty interviews with civil society activists, academics, politicians and government officials, and four focus groups with refugees and South African youth, which were conducted between February and March 2020 in Johannesburg, Musina and over the telephone. Given the extremely fast-paced evolution into a global pandemic, we did not discuss the Corona implications during our interviews, despite the fact that a week or two later everything had changed. Though at the time of writing our data have not yet been fully analysed, as the lockdown was announced in South Africa it led us to rethink our initial findings in light of the ongoing pandemic.

In the following, we briefly introduce refugee and migration governance in South Africa, before highlighting three migration-related policy developments as the Corona pandemic evolved: the closure of refugee reception centres, a new border fence between South Africa and Zimbabwe, and confusing messages about which businesses, including food shops, may stay open according to citizenship rather than services they provide. We show that each of these developments has at best little to do with dealing with the Corona epidemic, and at worst, very much plays into politics as usual. We see the pandemic being used as a way to implement other objectives – primarily of securitisation, but also the instrumentalisation of xenophobia for exclusion and scapegoating.

Migration Governance in South Africa

As existing laws, practices, and narratives on migration form the backdrop against which the current government has addressed these issues during the ongoing pandemic, we start by revisiting the status quo ante before discussing current developments. There is a long tradition of cross-border labour migration in the entire Southern African region, and South Africa is a popular destination because of its stable political environment and better developed economy.

Often praised for its progressive asylum laws, with the Refugee Act from 1998 allowing asylum seekers to move freely, work, and study in the country, South African politicians have repeatedly generated political capital from restricting these rights in the two decades since the implementation of the Act. Today, the asylum process can be long and arduous (see below), and many migrants and asylum seekers face considerable risks in South Africa, including crime, harassment, and xenophobic attacks (e.g. Amnesty International, 2019; Estifanos et al., 2019; see also Camminga, 2018).

With few possibilities for anyone but highly qualified migrants entering South Africa, the political and administrative response and societal understanding have long merged refugees and migrants in the system: many migrants who enter the country see no choice but to enter the asylum system, in order to legalise their stay. As such, the asylum system has become a surrogate immigration channel which further obfuscates the distinction between economic immigrants and asylum seekers (Moyo, 2017). This has resulted in the development of a dysfunctional asylum system that is beset by an insurmountable backlog that could take decades to clear. The net effect of a restrictive immigration system and a dysfunctional asylum system is that it fails in its duty to protect refugees and asylum seekers who require urgent assistance and protection.

The only exception to the restrictive immigration regime has been the Documentation of Zimbabweans Project (DZP), which was introduced in 2010 to ease pressure on the asylum system by dealing with the large numbers of undocumented Zimbabwean immigrants. The idea was to regularise the status of Zimbabweans living in the country, giving them the right to work, study, and run businesses, albeit temporarily (Thebe, 2017). The programme was extended in 2014 and 2017, but there is no certainty as to whether it will be extended again in 2021 when the 2017 permits expire. The ad hoc nature of the DZP is not new, as South Africa has implemented similar programmes in the past, namely the amnesty for former mine workers (1996), Mozambican refugees (1996–1999) and for undocumented Southern African Development Community (SADC) citizens (1996) (e.g. Crush, 1999; Peberdy, 2001). The difference is that these newer amnesties only give recipients temporary residence with no option of permanent residence regardless of length of stay in South Africa. The DZP effectively keeps recipients in a state of permanent temporariness.

The new measures introduced as part of dealing with the Corona pandemic reflect key characteristics of South Africa’s refugee and migration governance, namely only a temporary stay of the bureaucratic wall for asylum seekers, securitisation, as well as the instrumentalisation of xenophobia, as we show in the following.

Waiting in Suspension: A Stay on Jumping Bureaucratic Loops

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) announced on the day the lockdown started that because Refugee Reception Offices (RRO) are also affected by the lockdown, anyone whose permit will become invalid will have an additional thirty days after the lockdown is lifted to renew their permit. Some banks followed, allowing asylum seekers to keep their accounts open, even if their permits expire in the meantime (Vearey, 2020). A temporary stay on having to renew permits during the pandemic is, however, at best merely perfunctory.

The DHA is barely able to keep up with the backlog and administering permits even at the best of times. A bureaucratic wall has successively been built up, making life for asylum seekers much harder. Refugees have five days to make a claim once they enter the country. Most asylum seekers are then given a limited Section 22 permit, which they have to renew every one to six months, whilst awaiting the adjudication process. One asylum seeker describes his ordeal:

Yet RROs lack the capacity to process asylum claims. Out of six offices, only three continue to fully function (Durban, Musina, and Pretoria), with others closed fully or to new claims since 2011. Court orders to reopen the closed offices have been ignored by the DHA to date. Whilst some of the interviewees we talked to noted that it takes time to implement a court order, especially given capacity and financial constraints of the DHA, others argued that this indicated a “crisis of the rule of law” (interview, refugee rights’ activist, telephone, 4 March 2020). To date, the DHA has long ignored court orders and largely ignored the critique from activists (see also Carciotto and Mavura, 2016).

The burden of constantly renewing the permits, often having to travel far distances, and waiting in long queues is unsustainable, and often takes years. In the meantime, the Refugee Appeals Board is already processing a backlog, which by December 2017 included 147,794 claims and would take sixty-eight years to work through, as a 2019 audit of the immigration process at the DHA concluded (Auditor General of South Africa, 2019; interview with Lawyers for Human Rights, Johannesburg, 13 February 2020). Recent changes to the refugee law – facing criticism on a number of points, including the fact that refugees or asylum seekers are forbidden from partaking in undefined “political activities,” do change the rules for the appeals board, which will hopefully speed up procedures. Nonetheless, though the stay of having to renew permits is for once a decidedly un-bureaucratic solution, it does not indicate a more general shift. For one, no rules indicate how to deal with new asylum claims that arise during the lockdown period, and how this could affect the future of their asylum claim. Moreover, all other Corona-related policy developments paint a picture of business as usual at best, if not using the pandemic to advance policies unrelated to public health.

Border Walls to Stop a Virus: A Securitised Agenda

One of the other very first measures announced to deal with the Corona epidemic was to build a 40 km fence on the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe (Al Jazeera, 2020). ³ For a start, this takes away critical resources at a time when infections in South Africa are higher than all the neighbouring countries combined. This means that closing this particular border point holds limited value for public health. At the time of writing, there were 3,300 recorded cases in South Africa and only twenty-five in Zimbabwe. ⁴ Border walls, including fences, are also known to be costly and with questionable effects at best, and this is an area that is already known for the porous nature of its borders (Dodson, 2000; Jones, 2016). If anything, hopes for dealing with the virus cannot be pinned on building walls with neighbouring countries, but rather on concerted efforts at regional coordination and galvanising responses that will ensure that the entire SADC region can flatten the curve together. It also belies the reality, where infections have mostly come from people arriving and returning or coming from much further afield, especially Europe.

Patricia de Lille, the Public orks minister, explained the fence would “ensure that no undocumented or infected persons cross into the country” (emphasis added, Al Jazeera, 2020). This statement highlights that infectious-diseases prevention is likely only an afterthought. Despite the immediate crisis, priority is given to stopping undocumented migrants, a reflection of an increasingly securitised approach to migration and refugee governance in South Africa. Securitised approaches in migration governance aspire to a restrictive migration policy through the social construction of migration as a security question, whereby migration has supposed negative effects on the domestic environment and portrays a danger for public order (e.g. Huysmans, 2000).

One academic we talked to noted in the following:

To update this according to the pandemic and its reaction, which has come to light in the few weeks since the interview took place, responses speak to more than just a social or public health agenda but to a place where “South Africa has become more hostile towards immigrants including refugees and asylum seekers” (ibid).

South Africa is not alone in pursuing a securitisation agenda, but joins a growing list of countries that have put their faith in walls and fences as well as externalisation processes in order to keep away irregular immigrants, even when this contradicts the very foundation of free movement they otherwise aspire to (Bourbeau, 2011; Huysmans, 2000). The securing of borders agenda and building of fences is not new in South Africa, however, and not only in line with a more universal trend. It has antecedents in the apartheid era period where the state built electric fences on the Mozambican and Zimbabwean borders to stem the flow of irregular migrants (Crush, 1999), but in the post-apartheid times there has been a strong focus on deportation and securing the border (e.g. Amit, 2013; Mthembu-Salter et al., 2014). The most recent White Paper on International Migration from 2017 reflects this securitised focus by, for example, including the idea of processing centres at the borders, which dismantle most of the rights that asylum seekers currently hold.

The processing centres idea has received a lot of critique from civil society actors and is yet to materialise. In February, however, a new Border Management Authority Bill was passed by the National Assembly, which aims to coordinate border security under a single authority composed of DHA, SAPS, the South African Defence Force, and other state agencies. The Act has been long in the making but also faces criticism for potentially abusing basic principles of refugee protection and painting a militarised picture of “migrant invasion,” which is at odds with Pan-African free movement ideals (Bornman, 2020).

Back to the ongoing pandemic, the building of the fence certainly gives the Border Management Authority Bill another push. Taking the securitisation over public health agenda to its maxim, soldiers and other security personnel have now been deployed to the new fence to protect it, after acts of vandalism even prior to completion. With emergency powers open to abuse all over the world, a COVID-justified fence with military protection certainly plays into the hands of the increasingly securitised approach to migration and refugee governance in South Africa.

No Exception: Xenophobic Discourse in Times of Rising Inequalities

Beyond the issue of securitisation and a temporary stay on the bureaucratic hurdles, the pandemic response has additionally highlighted the frequent xenophobic rhetoric politicians use in order to gain populist points, especially amongst the many poor South Africans.

The country has faced several waves of xenophobic violence against refugees and other migrants, notably in 2008, but also in 2019 (Mosselson, 2010; Nyamnjoh, 2010). Often such acts of violence have taken place against foreign-owned small shops, known as spaza shops, which are widespread in the townships. The number of spaza shopsis estimated to be in the region of 100,000 across South Africa’s townships, with unconfirmed estimates of approximately 70–85 per cent of these owned by foreign nationals (du Toit, 2020). Many of the foreign nationals are refugees, particularly from Ethiopia, Somalia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. These businesses make significant contributions to the local economies where they operate , by creating employment for both foreign migrants and South African citizens (Hovhannisyan et al., 2018).

The outbreaks in xenophobic violence are periodically linked to politicians’ pronouncements, which directly or indirectly invoke such clashes (World Politics Review, 2019). At best, they ignore the existence of a problem. A prominent ANC politician told us in an interview, “It’s not xenophobia – just be documented and don’t be a criminal” (interview, Johannesburg, 11 February), effectively putting all blame of violence on refugees and migrants themselves.

Now, in the midst of announcing the rules pertaining to the shutdown, the Minister of Small Business Development, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, noted in a briefing that whilst spaza shops may operate, only South African owned and operated ones may do, claiming; “We want to make sure that the quality of food and surety of the quality of products is there.” ⁵ On the first day of the lockdown, immigrant-owned spaza shops were already being shut down by police (Sizani, 2020). Ironically, such shut-downs will actually force many residents of townships to increase their movements in order to buy food and other necessities, increasing the health risks of the Corona virus spread. Such communication mishaps at a time where national unity is so sorely needed, speaks volumes to the business as usual approach. On 6 April, a new directive permitted all spaza shops to remain open, but by then the damage may have already been done. ⁶

There is no easy explanation for xenophobia. Misago (2019), for example, identifies political mobilisation in local communities as the trigger of xenophobic violence, arguing that general discontent and other macro and micro issues do not solely explain the outbreaks of violence in specific communities. Fertile grounds for xenophobia are, however nurtured by the abject poverty and lack of employment opportunities many people face. As one participant in a focus group with young South Africans in a township on the outskirts of Johannesburg put it: “Xenophobic attacks are an opportunity to loot, because we are unemployed, we get bored, we are hungry” (Focus Group Discussion Orange Farm, 14 February 2020).

The scapegoating of an “other,” especially migrants, in order to gain or retain votes in light of inequalities competition over very limited resources is by no means new to the country (e.g. Dube, 2019; Whitaker and Clark, 2018). At a time when an economic downturn is expected in the aftermath of the pandemic, such political posturing can, however, act like a fire accelerator. In a different focus group, an asylum seeker noted, “How would the country be able to manage migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, if ‘the government in South Africa is failing to manage its own people?’?” (Focus groups with refugees and asylum seekers, Johannesburg, 14 February 2020.)

The xenophobic tendencies are heightened by social inequalities, which are only likely to rise as the pandemic further escalates. To sum up, the initial lockdown rules were used as a political opportunity to rhetorically exclude refugee and other-migrant shop owners, despite the public health costs and potential violent conflict repercussions this holds.

Conclusion

We write this from our respective homes in Johannesburg and Freiburg, experiencing the diverse challenges of lockdowns: from small children who are suddenly in our twenty-four hour care, greatly restricting our working hours, to tense outings to our closest supermarkets, our lives are anything but usual. At the same time, we can count on many privileges in these unusual times. Reflecting on our ongoing research in light of the government response to the global pandemic, we found that there seems to be little change in the government agenda when it comes to dealing with refugees and other migrants. Veritably, we saw that the pandemic may even be an excuse for pushing through already-aspired to policies – primarily of securitisation but also the instrumentalisation of xenophobia for exclusion and scapegoating. This is in line with what policy experts see as “some governments, that are taking advantage of the crisis to push through legally dubious, hard-line migration policies that can’t be justified by public health concern” (Reidy, 2020).

The South African migration and refugee governance regime is characterised by a deeply overburdened asylum system that has become a surrogate immigration channel. In the midst of what already was an economic downturn, the governmental tools of dealing with this have always been making the asylum process as burdensome as can be, securitising through borders and deportations and blaming foreigners in the country for economic woes through constant xenophobic exclusion and scapegoating. Despite a temporary stay on having to renew asylum permits due to the closure of reception centres, the migrant-related responses to the pandemic show that infectious-diseases prevention is merely an afterthought to ongoing agendas.

The construction of a border fence was one of the first responses to the pandemic, hugely disproportionate to the actual health risk from Zimbabwean neighbours. The initial lockdown rules were used as a political opportunity for once again rhetorically excluding refugee and other migrant shop owners. Beyond the securitised agenda of the border fence and the xenophobic-rhetorical clout behind the lockdown rules, the global pandemic has only allowed a temporary stay on the bureaucratic loops asylum seekers are usually expected to jump in the system, a move which, however, feels perfunctory. This paints a picture of business as usual at best – if not using the pandemic to advance policies unrelated to public health. With the infections rising, the restrictive agenda is nonetheless especially damaging during this time.

The global health crisis, however, also shows that forcing people into years of uncertainty and “permanent temporality” will not pay off (Landau, 2006). In the long-run only a more inclusive agenda, which includes listening to those stakeholders who have been advising on these issues, would allow South Africa to return to the progressive asylum laws it has received so much praise for.