Foreigners fear `inhumane` treatment

Source: Sharika Regchand – The Mercury, 14/07/2015

Durban - Ten illegal foreigners living in Pietermaritzburg were given
letters saying they had to leave the country before June 25, but they
stayed on while evading arrest, for fear they were going to be treated
"inhumanely" during the deportation process.
They said they did not have the resources to leave, but the Department
of Home Affairs said the only reason they had been given time to leave
on their own and the June 25 date was because they had indicated that
they had the means to do so.
A local teacher, Julie Stofberg, who has taken up their plight, said
she would meet a human rights lawyer to discuss the treatment of
foreigners from the time of their arrest until deportation.
The men were arrested during an Operation Fiela raid in May.
Explaining what had happened, one of them, a Zimbabwean, said that
they had pleaded guilty to being in the country illegally and were
sentenced to one month in prison.
After serving the term, they were taken to the Lindela holding
facility in Krugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, where illegal migrants
are detained. Sixteen of them were brought back to Pietermaritzburg,
given Form 21s by the department and released. A paragraph read: "As
you have undertaken to leave the Republic voluntarily, you are hereby
ordered to leave the Republic voluntarily by 00h00 on June 25, 2015,
failure of which you shall be arrested and detained pending your
deportation."
The men said they did not have the money to leave and refused to go
back to the department, for fear of being taken back to Lindela.
They said the conditions there were "inhumane".
Stofberg said: "They now have nothing. Their belongings were stolen
after the raids… they are homeless, penniless and vulnerable."
The department`s acting provincial manager, Nosipho Shandu, said the
foreigners had told immigration officers that they had the means to
leave the country, which was why the forms had been issued.
The 10 foreigners who remained were deemed to be in the country
illegally.
"The onus is on a foreign national to have a valid permit or visa at
all times. If they are found without a valid permit, they will be
deported.
"Failure to produce a valid permit on demand, by an immigration
officer, will lead to arrest."
She said that Lindela dealt with deportees in terms of the Immigration
Act and in compliance with human rights.
Officials there had the discretion of sending illegal foreigners back
to the South African cities they had been living in.
She said there were administrative processes enabling the department
to establish who had left the country.
The information was available on the department`s system and at the
ports of entry.
The Mercury