About 300,000 foreigners have sought asylum in SA since 2013: Aaron Motsoaledi

Close to 300,000 foreign national applied for asylum in Pretoria between 2013 and 2018.

This is according to home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi, who was responding to a written parliamentary question by IFP MP Liezl van der Merwe.

Motsoaledi revealed that 2014 saw the most foreign nationals approach the department for asylum, with just over 70,000 applications received. Of these, 68,000 were processed up to the first level of adjudication.

Last year saw applications for asylum plummet to 18,000 in what has been a consistent decrease since 2013.

Numbers for 2019 had not yet been tallied by the time of Motsoaledi's response, which is dated November 22.

Motsoaledi said: "It must be noted that adjudication is not based on the year of the NIIS [National Immigration Information System] registration. This will mean cases not finalised in the year of registration may be processed in subsequent years. This may result in more cases processed up to first level of adjudication than newcomers registered." 

Motsoaledi failed to respond to a related question from the DA regarding backlog in the number of applications for SA visas, saying numbers were yet to be tallied due to technical glitches.