A Cameroonian migrant, Esteban Azu, 37, said he paid human
smugglers $8,000 to get him into the U.S. He said his journey took
him from his home country to Turkey, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama,
Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and finally to Mexico,
Animal Politico reported.
“I arrived in Tapachula a month ago. I left Cameroon and went
directly to Ecuador. From there to Colombia. I climbed mountains,
walked through the jungle, to find this shit,” Azu expressed.
“This shit! They don’t feed me. They don’t give me anything. I am
very angry with the government of Mexico. This is not normal. This
is bullshit. We need a solution. We just want to get out of here.”
The man who claims to be a plumber by trade, now finds himself
trapped in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
A June 7 rule change that stems from an agreement between the U.S.
and Mexico no longer allows safe passage to the United States.
Mexico deployed thousands of its newly formed National Guard to
enforce the new laws and deter migration through the country,
Breitbart Texas reported. Since that time, migration through
Mexico has dropped by about 40 percent.
Prior to the rule change, more than 1,100 African migrants arrived
in a single Texas Border Patrol sector in a five-week period,
Breitbart Texas reported in July.
In a press call in June, Brian Hastings, U.S. Border Patrol Chief
of Law Enforcement Operations, told reporters this was the first
large group “ever recorded in Border Patrol history solely from
Central and South Africa. We’ve never seen that demographic in a
large group of that size before.”
Prior to the rule change, migrants �` African or others �` received
a 20-day passage through the country and were required to leave
via any border. Obviously, the goal was the northern border of
Mexico.
The new document being provided to migrants in southern Mexico
states that the migrant may not “travel freely.”

The document says
they now must leave the country in 20 days “through a place
destined for the international transit of people on the southern
border closest to the place where said document was issued.”
Animal Politico interviews dozens of migrants �` mostly Africans �`
who told the same story. They stated they were ordered to go to
the regularization office or they may apply for asylum in Mexico.
Neither option is said to be acceptable as their stated goal is
entry into the United States.
“They do not want to request refuge in Chiapas because they want
to do so in the United States,” Animal Politico stated.
Mexican immigration authorities reported that 3,712 people from
Africa appeared between January and June 2019. The majority of
those came from Cameroon. Most of the balance came from the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Similar demographics were reported by Del Rio Sector Border Patrol
officials in June when more than 500 African migrants appeared
along the U.S. side of Mexico’s northern border in a one-week
period, Breitbart Texas reported.
Two weeks before the illegal crossings began in the Del Rio
Sector, hundreds of African migrants gathered near an
international bridge in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, to protest not
being allowed entry into the U.S. through a legal port of entry,
Breitbart News reported. The group complained that Cuban migrants
were given preferential treatment.
Since that time, multiple groups of African migrants, mostly
family units, crossed in the same area in large numbers. On June
5, agents apprehended another group of 34, bringing the total to
more than 500 in less than a week.
In June and July, U.S. officials reported sharp decreases in the
number of migrants being apprehended after crossing the border
illegally. V.2962

There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas. Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses. In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers. V.5318
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) this week revealed that Cape Town International Airport (CTIA) has achieved a ground-breaking milestone by processing more than 10 million passengers over a single financial year. This is the highest number of regional and international passengers processed since COVID-19 V.5316
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In recent years, South Africa has seen a significant influx of immigrants from various African countries, as well as other parts of the world. This has raised important questions about the country`s immigration policies and their impact on job creation for both locals and immigrants. The South African immigration system, like many other countries, is a complex and ever-evolving process that aims to balance the country`s economic needs with its social and cultural interests. Let`s take a closer look at how this system intersects with job creation in South Africa. The South African government implemented the Immigration Act of 2002, which outlines the country`s immigration policies and procedures. Under this act, foreigners are required to obtain a visa or permit to enter, work, or study in South Africa. The type of visa or permit required depends on the intended purpose of the individual`s visit and their country of origin. V.5312
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Due to system downtime and load-shedding, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) lost nearly 141,000 hours of Smart ID application and production time between the 2019/20 and 2022/23 financial years. Minister Aaron Motsoaledi revealed this figure in a recent response to questions raised in Parliament by Democratic Alliance MP Adrian Roos. Motsoaledi provided a breakdown of smart ID production and application hours lost to technical difficulties and load-shedding per province for each financial year from 2019/2020. These disruptions hit home Affairs offices in the Eastern Cape the hardest, with over 34,000 hours to rotational power cuts and system downtime. Mpumalanga offices lost the next-highest number of hours at 17 V.5313
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Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has said the public has shown great support for the final White Paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection which appeared in the Government Gazette on Wednesday. Briefing the media, he addressed what he saw as a long-overdue need to replace an outdated Citizenship Act, as well as enact proposed changes to existing legislation. V.5306
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