Home Affairs, the Rule of Law and all that jazz

Source: Daily Maverick, 14/05/2018

A line of asylum-seekers stand under the Nelson Mandela Boulevard
bridge every day on the Foreshore in Cape Town â€` a queue, I believe,
partly manufactured by the Department of Home Affairs to make South
Africans believe that we are inundated by “a deluge” of cross-border
migrants.
We are certainly not inundated â€` surveys have found that only between
2.8% to 5.8% of the South African population are “foreign-born”.
The people in this queue are waiting, and desperately hoping, to be
allowed through the entrance and to be swallowed by dark and dank
Customs House, and thus to be one step closer to having their Section
22 permits renewed.
These “papers” would allow them to survive in South African society
legally. A simple queue management system (among other things) would
make a world of difference to those who stand day-in and day-out in
the dust of the pavement, amid the exhaust fumes that sift down from
the highway leading to the bright lights and polish of the
Waterfront. This queue stands painfully exposed to glowering South
African eyes that whizz past in cars to their next urgent
appointment.
Two weeks ago, I was part of a small delegation of representatives
from human rights organisations and migrant groups who tried to meet
with the Director of the Refugee Reception Office in Customs House.
We barely made it past the first gate, despite our best efforts to
secure a meeting. The question we wanted to ask was a simple one: was
the staff poised and ready to operate a fully functional Cape Town
Refugee Reception Office by 31 March? It was just a little bit more
than a week away and the clock was ticking.
This question would come as no surprise to the office’s director;
Home Affairs has been instructed in no uncertain terms by the courts
to be ready by this date. The last ruling was in September 2017 by
the Supreme Court of Appeal, and Home Affairs’ petition to the
Constitutional Court to appeal this decision was turned down. Part of
the court order states that Home Affairs was also obliged to provide
regular progress reports on how their preparations were coming along
in opening a fully functional Cape Town Refugee Reception Office. Not
a single page of such a report had emerged from their offices.
One of my colleagues was eventually allowed into the building to see
the director, but didn’t come back with joyful news. The director
refused to answer any of her questions and referred her to someone
else.
I sneakily managed to enter the building under the pretext of needing
to use the toilets (the porter loos that were previously located
outside the building had long since been removed).
I peered out from the dusty windows of the bathroom to see the long
queue of people a few floors down, waiting patiently. Barely moving.
Just across the road at the Cape Town International Convention
Centre, busy trucks, energetic project managers and frenzied workers
were putting the last touches to the stages and classy tents of the
Cape Town Jazz Festival. The juxtaposition of glitzy glamour and
dusty squalor couldn’t be more striking than in this distinctively
South African scene.
I caught the eye of a mom from the Congo in the bathroom changing her
nine-month-old baby’s nappy on the bathroom floor (no nappy-changing
facilities to be seen. No toilet paper. No dustbins). She had been in
the queue since 15:00 the day before and had slept under the bridge
with 36 others. She smiled at me â€` she was one of the 20 lucky ones
who had made it into the building today. Seventeen unlucky ones had
been turned away, only to have to replay the same scenario the
following week.
The mom and I parted ways at the bathroom door with a nod. She threw
the dirty nappy in an overflowing dustbin in the passage and
cheerfully rejoined the lucky queue inside the offices. I turned to
meet up with my colleagues outside talking to the people in the
unlucky queue.
Newcomers to South Africa seeking asylum and who live in Cape Town
must go to the Musina, Pretoria or Durban Refugee Reception Offices
to apply for a permit. Bizarrely, they are not assisted in this half-
functioning Refugee Reception Office on the Foreshore. Many of the
same asylum-seekers have to travel from Cape Town to these far-flung
places every couple of months to renew their permits.
The court order is clear that Home Affairs was to fundamentally
change this situation by the end of March. They had failed again, as
they had done previously: they disgracefully ignored the Supreme
Court of Appeal’s order to reopen a Refugee Reception Office in Port
Elizabeth by a 1 June 2015 deadline. That office is still not open.
Civil society has vowed that home affairs will not get away with the
same shenanigans in Cape Town.
We launched a silent protest at Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on
Home Affairs, and an #OpentheRRO social media campaign aimed at
reminding the department and Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba,
daily of how much time was left before their `DayZero` at the end of
March. On 28 March, the department agreed to meet with us, and
representatives arrive.
We were informed that the Cape Town Refugee Reception Office will not
be fully operational as it was up to the Department of Public Works
to secure premises for Home Affairs.
The audacity of Home Affairs to seemingly pass the buck to Public
Works, and defy the rule of law, is dazzling. Come the beginning of
April, and the fully functional Cape Town Refugee Reception Office is
nowhere to be seen.
We are steely determined to further our important advocacy plans to
push Home Affairs to respect the rule of law, and their
constitutional obligations.