Immigrant backlash

More than 900 immigrants have filed an urgent application to force the Department of Home Affairs to do its job.

They claim, in a 48-page document, that the department has failed to process and determine various applications for permits within a "reasonable or lawful" time period.

Another set of applicants, who have been granted permits, are seeking payment of repatriation deposits, which are equivalent to the price of a flight back to their home country.

According to the court papers before the Cape Town High Court, the applicants have become "increasingly frustrated" with the service rendered by the department, which, they say, has led to "serious ramifications" in light of new immigration laws.

"When [the department] fails to adjudicate permit applications timeously or lawfully, the result is that the foreign national concerned becomes an illegal foreigner, unable to work, study, access medical or banking services, and vulnerable - inter alia - to arrest, detention and deportation," the immigrants say.

The immigration laws implemented recently have caused much confusion and led to families being divided between countries.

In terms of the law, a foreigner may not apply for new visa documents from South Africa but needs to do so from his or her home country. And foreigners who did not leave South Africa before the new regulations came into force are at risk of being declared undesirable persons, for between one and five years, and being banned from the country.

Home Affairs has battled to explain the reasoning behind the law, which has led to couples being split between countries, doctors unable to work and foreigners with scarce skills being penalised.

One of the case studies that make up the urgent application is that of a Canadian family forced to return home after their two children, aged 19 months and five years, were declared undesirable.

"I'm so confused," the husband said. "My wife, a citizen, applied for birth certificates here during our stay, but was unable to retrieve them because they had told her that they were not yet ready."

Another applicant from Canada applied three times to change her temporary residence permit to a study permit after she was told that her applications had been lost.

A woman who wants to return to her husband in the UK is afraid to do so as she has been told she will be declared undesirable and face a ban, making it impossible to visit her grandchildren in future.

The court application was made on Monday and the department indicated it would fight it.

Yesterday, Home Affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni tried to unpack the new laws for the media.

"In the past, someone could come into the country on a tourist permit and later decide to change the status of their permit to temporary residency. There have been instances where people were fraudulently in possession of South African documents. We need to find a way to avoid that," he said.

Stuart James, an immigration expert from Intergate Immigration, the organisation behind the court case, said it was receiving "literally thousands of calls and e-mails" each week from confused immigrants or prospective immigrants.

"Whatever the rules and regulations may be if they can't be implemented correctly, governed efficiently and communicated well, they will be of no benefit to South Africa," he said.