EXPLAINER | What is behind the anti-immigrant protests?

Protesters have told all undocumented foreign nationals to leave South Africa by Tuesday ahead of anti-immigrant rallies many fear will turn violent.

Thousands of foreign Africans are heading home or huddling together in camps for fear of being attacked, though the group organising the protests, March and March, said it is peaceful.

Below are details of what the protesters are complaining about, how widespread their views are and how they stack up against reality.

Why target African migrants?

Anti-immigrant groups have said South Africa is overrun with illegal immigrants who take away jobs from South Africans, use up scarce public services and are responsible for high crime rates.

On June 24, Musa Hlongwa, president of the anti-migrant civil group United South Africa, told journalists: “South Africans are tired of standing in long queues in hospitals, competing for spaces in public schools with illegal immigrants, competing for jobs with foreign nationals, tired of Nigerians who are selling drugs to youth of this country.”

How many South Africans share their views?

Three surveys from last year showed a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment.

A Human Sciences Research Council poll showed South Africans were more hostile towards immigrants than ever, with only one in six adults saying they would welcome all foreigners and 42% saying they would welcome none, up from a third in 2021.

An Afrobarometer survey showed seven out of 10 South Africans see immigrants’ economic impact as negative, with an overwhelming 85% saying authorities should cut the number of refugees coming in or stop them altogether.

Ipsos found nearly three quarters of respondents did not trust immigrants from Africa “at all”.

How do the claims compare with reality?

Claim 1: SA is being overrun with illegal immigrants

A Stats SA survey in 2023 showed there were 3.1-million migrants in South Africa, equivalent to about 4.1% of the population, down from 5.6% a decade ago.

That is low by international standards. In Britain the proportion is 17%, Canada 22% and Australia 30%, according to 2024 UN data.

Campaigners said the statistics do not reflect the true numbers, which are swollen by undocumented arrivals. However, Stats SA uses census data that is designed to also capture them.

“The impression is that there are hordes of people coming into the country, but the data points to the contrary,” said Anthony Kaziboni, senior researcher at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa.

Claim 2: Foreign nationals are responsible for high crime rate

The police do not release data on the nationalities of convicts, but prison population figures from the justice department in 2017 showed 11,842 foreigners were being held in South African prisons, or about 6% of the prison population. Of those, 1,380 were there for entering the country illegally.

“All evidence suggests immigrants are disproportionately law-abiding. Most of their crimes are immigration violations,” said Loren B Landau, professor of migration and development at the University of Oxford.

Claim 3: African migrants are taking jobs from locals

A 2018 World Bank report showed for every migrant employed, about two jobs are created for South Africans through business activity.

That is because migrants make money and spend the bulk of it in South Africa on goods and services produced by locals.

“If you own a restaurant in South Africa, you have more customers available to you,” said Lauren Gilbert, director of political science data at GeoQuant.

“If migrants are living with dubious kitchen facilities [for example] because migrant housing is often bad, they’re more likely to eat street food.”

Claim 4: Undocumented migrants use up scarce services

Undocumented migrants are highly unlikely to try to use public hospitals or schools, for which they must register, for fear of being found out, Kaziboni said.

Health and education services are struggling across the country, but that is mostly due to chronic underinvestment and endemic corruption, according to economists.

“To squarely blame immigrants for a failed healthcare crisis is unjust and unfounded. There is no evidence that supports that,” Kaziboni said.

“We should blame poor governance, maladministration and corruption,” he said, noting that R1.5-trillion was lost to corruption during former president Jacob Zuma’s term in office, plus R1bn spent on investigating it.

Why the xenophobia?

Historically, the apartheid government used migrant labour from all over Africa to keep wages low in gold mines and undermine unions, a policy burnt into the collective memory.

Today, a third of people are out of work, one of the world’s highest unemployment rates. Poor service delivery cost the ANC its majority in the 2024 elections. Inequality is the highest in the world, by some measures.

That all fuels anger that is easy to direct onto migrants. Politicians also stoke it around election time.

“Immigrants are by no means the reason why services and the economy have faltered, but people remember what confirms their biases,” Landau said. “What they don’t see is the foreigners investing, trading or providing skills the economy needs.”

Reuters