Schwartzerwitz: Home affairs in the dark about number of illegal immigrants

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Home affairs in the dark about number of illegal immigrants

The Department of Home Affairs has no idea how many illegal immigrants are in South Africa. (from the M&G)

Responding to a question at a parliamentary media briefing on Thursday, Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said providing such a figure was "difficult".

Asked to give her department's latest estimate of the number of people illegally living and working in South Africa, she replied: "I don't know. If somebody's here illegally, how do I know they are here? I do not know, that's an honest answer."

Tthe South African Police Service, in its 2008/09 annual report, said there could be as many as six million "undocumented" foreigners in the country.

"According to various estimates, the number of undocumented immigrants in South Africa may vary between three and six million people," according to the report.

The police go on to say most of these illegal immigrants "may belong to the economically-active age group, as well as the high crime-risk age group".

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Every Pogrom needs an Armband....

Welcome to Schwartzerwitz. The inevitable consequence of 4 million illegal immigrants arriving in South Africa. More desperate than our local folk they are willing to work longer harder faster for less. The immigrants are more reliable than South African unskilled labour and have outcompeted the local folk. No matter what anyone says it's not FAIR on our locals. Adding 4 million hungry mouths to the country has exacerbated the rocketing food prices felt across the globe. Adding 4 million potential electricity users to the mix has undoubtedly worsened the electricity situation. Having 4 million people send home money to their family drains the economy of money which should stay within the borders. Adding 4 million people and not registering them as taxpayers has cost the country billions. What chance does our government of ridding the country of shacks as per the Millennium Development Goal when 4 million immigrants build/rent shacks. Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe....? Just move to a shack in South Africa. On an individual basis this site condemns violent acts against individuals. However as a collective the illegal immigrants deserve no sympathy and should be deported back from whence they came. These people are economic refugees - "not real refugees" - and they are(generally speaking) in South Africa illegally.

kwerekwere.

The inside cover of my Oxford English dictionary features a word with which I have become all too familiar: the word is kwerekwere.

(It may be more familiar to you with one of its vernacular language–dependant prefixes prepended — the Sotho singular being le– and plural ma–, the Nguni singular being i– and plural ama–). This word is used to refer to black (in the morphological sense) Africans who are not South Africans — South African being defined as Sotho, Nguni, Venda and Tsonga ethnic groups (by that measure the Swazis, Batswana, etc. would be South African?). This word has a very negative sting to it and is often used with contempt. From what I gather it has undertones which speak of how black Africans are believed to be sub–human, too dark and have a pungent smell.