Johannesburg – South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs has deported more than 51 000 undocumented migrants since the Government of National Unity (GNU) took office a year ago, surpassing the number of deportations recorded over the previous five years.
Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber revealed the figures during a PSG Think Big presentation on Tuesday, saying tighter border management and new technology were beginning to yield results. “The best investment we can make is to beef up border control,” he said, adding that Home Affairs reforms could serve as a template for the rest of the state.
The minister said South Africa’s porous borders were the product of three decades of underinvestment and weak security. The establishment of the Border Management Agency has brought responsibility under a single authority, while technology such as drones and fraud-proof ID verification has boosted detection of illegal crossings by 215 percent in the past year.
Schreiber noted that the green ID book has enabled widespread fraud, with 18 million South Africans still using the outdated document. They are now being phased into the smart ID card system. “Foreigners and visitors to SA will be required to make use of the same fraud-proof ID verification demanded of South Africans, using biometrics such as fingerprints and photos,” he said.
Home Affairs has also cleared a visa backlog of more than 300 000 applications, using technology to ease pressure on staff and speed up processing. “We’ve used technology to take the pressure off staff, but in the future we will be going into communities to address people who have been left behind,” Schreiber said.
As part of reforms, the department introduced Electronic Travel Authorisation, which allows tourists to apply and verify IDs online instead of visiting embassies. This has already resulted in 27 000 more visitors from markets such as India and China.
To improve access to services, over 1 000 bank branches equipped with biometric scanners and cameras are being incorporated into the system, speeding up applications for passports, IDs, and other documents. The online verification platform has also been overhauled, reducing error rates to less than one percent.
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