Countries that are relatively safe and prosperous are now having to deal with the consequences of their own success. They attract people who live in unsafe, poor and intolerant societies and want a better life.
The US was built by immigrants from Europe. Britain’s lingering prosperity from the days of Empire is now a magnet to migrants from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In both the US and the UK, immigration is a political issue that parties try to exploit for electoral gain. Now, for the first time, we are seeing the direct politicisation of migration in South Africa.
As this country settled into democracy after 1994, the ruling ANC’s attitude to migration from other African countries, especially Zimbabwe, was relatively benign. Our neighbours helped us in our years of exile from apartheid, the thinking went, so let’s be nice to them.
However, as the Robert Mugabe government ran Zimbabwe’s economy into the ground in the 1990s and early 2000s, ever-increasing numbers of Zimbabweans came south in search of work and opportunities. They were joined later by migrants from further north; Nigeria, Somalia and Ethiopia in particular.
Almost by definition, illegal immigrants combine desperation with resourcefulness. Those who leave their home countries are jumping into the unknown, with no guarantees. They are prepared to work for low wages because the alternative is starvation. Many are educated and skilled, giving them the confidence to emigrate in the first place and potentially equipping them for entrepreneurship — or criminality. If they are successful, they are envied.
It will be easy to make their presence and activities a factor in the November municipal elections
In Britain, resentment against migrants has more to do with culture and religion than economics. Migrants often do the work avoided by native Britons, who are cushioned anyway by the benefits of a welfare state. In South Africa, by contrast, the cry is that immigrants are taking jobs that should go to South Africans.
This looks set to be explosive in a country with an official unemployment rate of 32.9%, or 43.1% if you include discouraged work-seekers. Unemployment among the youth, usually defined as those between 15 and 34, stands at 45%. These rates are among the worst in the world.
The department of home affairs reported deporting roughly 47,000 undocumented immigrants in financial 2025 and more than 109,000 across the two years ended March 2026. It’s estimated that those who are never apprehended run into the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions.
The results of the migrant influx are felt at local level, so it will be easy to make their presence and activities a factor in the November municipal elections.
The issue is not that unscrupulous politicians will try to make migrants, documented or not, the scapegoats for failing municipalities and a severe lack of jobs. That is already happening. Nor will the measures announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday night make much difference — too little, too late.
The point is that the government must show an urgent appetite to uphold the law by protecting people — migrants included — and property from violence, intimidation and looting.
If it fails to do that, we will move towards the November election like a man in a boat on a lake of petrol, smoking a cigarette.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.