Mbalula says the issues raised by March and March are not new.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says South Africa has an illegal immigration problem that poses a security threat to the country.
He was speaking on Tuesday at a media briefing on the outcomes of the party’s recent National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting.
“We have got a challenge of illegal immigrants, which manifests itself by way of human trafficking, drugs and all of that. It has been with us for quite some time, and we have said that this challenge arises from, among others, porous borders.
“People just come in and out of the Republic, and so on, hence we have worked very hard over the years to create what is called border management, which is hard at work while these protests are visiting us,” he said.
Legislation to deal with migration
According to Mbalula, the government is looking at different ways of ensuring that all immigrants in the country are legal and contribute positively to the country.
“The role of government and the state is to tighten the laws and to protect its citizens without degenerating to a point where there are protests that are exploited by people with nefarious intentions.
“We are not focused on March and March; we are putting policy before South Africans to say the state, the democratic state, must intervene.
“If that does not happen, anyone can call themselves a leader and emerge on a popular front,” he said.
Mbalula said he is not pleased that South Africa is being portrayed as a xenophobic country on the continent.
“The question of illegal immigration is global. Donald Trump has gone to the house, and they gave him billions of dollars to execute what is called ICE. People are being chased up and down, arrested in America and being victimised.
“We do not want to degenerate to that level, we want money and laws that protect us, and we illustrate in our statement what [those laws] are,” he said.
Mbalula says the issues raised by March and March on illegal immigration are important and widely known.
He said the country struggles to find illegal immigrants who commit crimes in the Johannesburg CBD because they are unregistered and hide in hijacked buildings.
“They are undocumented, unregistered, it’s a national security threat, so the government must not allow this anarchy in our country to engulf us as though we do not have a state,” he said.
‘It happened under the ANC’
But speaking to The Citizen on Tuesday, PA deputy president Kenny Kunene blamed the ANC for the worsening crisis of illegal immigration.
“Our borders are porous. There is no fence. We, as the PA, went to the borders to highlight the truth about what is happening. Their people are crossing into South Africa, like they are crossing a street. They enter South Africa, commit a crime, and cross back into Zimbabwe. Some are even dating in South Africa; they come to see their girl friends and then simply cross back.
“The government of the ANC has dropped the ball because this happened under their watch,” he said.
African states must take responsibility
Kunene said the PA believes that all illegal foreigners must be mass deported. He said this is part of the party’s manifesto.
He said South Africa is overburdened by illegal immigrants.
“These countries must stop complaining when South Africa is deporting illegal immigrants; they must take responsibility for their own citizens… how do you build African unity when Africa is becoming a burden on one country?” he said.
Lack of political will
At a media briefing on Monday, March, and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma said South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) is not well-resourced to deal with illegal immigration to South Africa.
“The situation at the border is bad. BMA is suffering a lot. They are only operating at 25% capacity, which means 75% of the country is exposed to any threat even from international military agencies and we are sitting on a ticking time bomb and I really hope South Africans will stand up and defend the country.
“Every single state entity that is meant to protect the country and its citizens is defunded, which leaves you with a question: which president in the world would want to leave their country that vulnerable?” she said.
Ngobese-Zuma said politicians are more self-serving and more interested in enriching themselves than in caring about the country’s security.
“They do not know who is going to help them to solve the problem, and more than anything, they are terrified of those African countries; they do not call them out on the human rights abuses they commit against their own people, but they can tell March and March not to violate those people when their own governments violated them first,” she said.