ActionSA calls upon South Africans to refrain of vigilante acts
9 March 2022
ActionSA calls upon all South Africans to avoid taking the law into their own hands in response to frustration of illegal immigration and to condemn such vigilante acts.
Recent days have demonstrated an increasing tendency and intensity to scapegoat foreign nationals for the failures of the South African government and for vigilante activities. This will not only fail to solve illegal immigration, but it will take out country backwards further into lawlessness.
ActionSA is an organisation with origins in being amongst the first to tackle the issue of illegal immigration in South Africa before it became politically popular. We maintain this issue remains critical for both public and political attention.
However, the answer does not lie in scapegoating foreign nationals for the failures of the South African government and ActionSA advances that any effort to do so is to shield the government from the accountability it should face for its systematic failure to manage immigration into South Africa.
In reality, the Department of Home Affairs has failed for decades to issue documentation to people in South Africa who qualify in terms of our law for asylum in South Africa. The failure of the South African government to adequately resource the protection of our borders and points of entry have created a free for all where goods and people pass into South Africa without regulation. To add to this, law enforcement agencies have adopted a hands-off approach to the activities of those who take the law into their own hands.
To scapegoat foreign nationals is to deflect blame and public anger from where it should be directed – the South African government. Put differently, illegal immigration cannot be resolved by the actions of vigilantes, but only through the removal of the ANC government.
Until that day comes the actions of those involving themselves in vigilante activities show contempt for the rule of law and advance the prospects of xenophobic outbreaks of violence in our country.
ActionSA’s involvement in multi-party coalitions has provided a platform to demonstrate our commitment to addressing this key issue. With MMC of Public Safety portfolios in both Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, plans are being developed to ensure these municipalities respond to the failures of national government in dealing with illegal immigration. Through these actions, we will demonstrate to South Africans that a future can be envisioned where illegal immigration is addressed decisively by government.
ActionSA is committed to offering South Africans a policy offering on immigration in 2024 that focusses on ensuring that people enter South Africa legally and, once here, obey our laws. It must be the duty of government to fulfil its obligations to the citizens of South Africans and those who are entitled to be in our country.
We call upon all South Africans to focus their energies on unseating the cause of this problem – the ANC government.
Issued by Herman Mashaba, President, ActionSA, 9 March 2022
