South Africa’s Mass Deportation Movement Exposes Global Border Crisis

Clear Facts

• Over 160,000 illegal immigrants have fled South Africa following massive citizen-led protests demanding border enforcement
• Activists claim up to 30 million illegal immigrants live in a nation of 63 million documented citizens, while the government admits to only 3 million
• South Africa’s official unemployment rate stands at 32.7%, yet nearly all illegal immigrants have found work, often at below-minimum wages

Thousands of South African citizens have taken to the streets in a massive grassroots movement demanding that illegal immigrants leave their country, forcing over 160,000 foreigners to flee in what has become one of the largest self-deportation events in recent history. The citizen uprising mirrors growing frustration with open border policies across Western nations, as South Africans confront what they describe as government negligence on border security and national sovereignty.

The scale of illegal immigration in South Africa remains hotly contested. While the government claims only 3 million immigrants reside in the country, activist organizations put the number between 15 and 30 million in a nation of 63 million documented citizens.

These mostly undocumented immigrants face accusations of driving rampant crime, taking jobs from citizens, and overwhelming hospital wards and government schools. In some areas like Soweto, near Johannesburg, citizen groups have gone house-to-house giving deadlines for immigrants to leave the country.

Earlier this month, nationwide protests resulted in 900 arrests, with one death reported in the Johannesburg area. While largely peaceful, police were called to disperse violent protesters in some locations.

Illegal immigrants have responded by taking buses out of the country or accepting repatriation flights provided by their home countries across Africa. On one flight to Ghana in June, South African border authorities discovered that 321 of 332 Ghanaians attempting to leave were in the country illegally.

Up to five immigrants have been killed by protesters this year. The most prominent anti-immigrant civic group, the March and March movement, claims it opposes violence while its followers march through streets carrying large traditional sticks called knobkerries, “encouraging” foreigners to leave.

Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, founder and leader of March and March, told Fox News Digital:

“We’ve had enough. The number of illegal immigrants living in South Africa is between 15 and 30 million, and that’s an arguable number because everyone is always debating what the actual number is.”

The 30 million figure remains contentious. The only official published figures come from a 2022 census by Statistics SA, which critics question because the organization is controlled by the ANC government accused of causing the illegal immigration crisis.

The body claims up to three million immigrants live in the country, but Ngobese-Zuma points out this figure includes people with documents. Immigrants have frequently been seen running away when officials request documentation.

The head of Statistics SA, Risenga Maluleke, admitted to local Eyewitness News that his officials don’t verify information when they can find immigrants:

“When people say I was born outside South Africa, we take what they say because we have not had a way of proving it other than relying on what they say.”

Ngobese-Zuma added:

“The country is being invaded, and we decided to do something about it. There’s too much crime going on at the hands of foreign nationals. The actual truth is that a lot of them go unfound because nobody knows who they are. They’re not on record. Their fingerprints are not on the system. So there [are] a lot of cases actually that are outstanding when it comes to the issue of illegal immigrants.”

The economic impact has proven devastating. Statistics South Africa recently reported the official unemployment rate stands at 32.7%.

Yet almost all illegal immigrants have found work, with President Cyril Ramaphosa admitting to the nation in a televised address last month:

“Some employers hire undocumented immigrants because they pay them wages that are well below the minimum wage and make them work longer hours without due compensation.”

This economic reality drove March and March’s Ngobese-Zuma to explain:

“The issue of jobs is also very important. In our community, where there’s the highest unemployment in the world, it only makes sense that South Africans are out there demanding that they be prioritized when it comes to employment.”

The strain on public services has reached crisis levels. Several reports claim that in a local Johannesburg government hospital built to offer practically free care to South African citizens, patients in the emergency room wait up to 36 hours to be seen because so many foreigners use the facilities.

At least one patient has died waiting to be seen at the Helen Joseph hospital near the city center. Ngobese-Zuma pointed out:

“We have a welfare (health and education) system in the country, and currently people are flocking in from all over the African continent and the world to come and take advantage of these free things that they think are free when it’s actually taxpayers that are paying for it.”

Border controls have proven so lax that hundreds of thousands have simply waded across low rivers to enter South Africa, with crocodiles posing a bigger threat than police or immigration officials. Bribery and corruption at border posts is endemic.

Following the public outcry and with local elections approaching, President Ramaphosa has vowed to “crack down” on immigration issues. As of July 11, the government claims 53,449 foreign nationals have been processed for deportation and repatriation—less than 0.2% of the illegal immigrants said to be in the country by March and March.

Public pressure groups and politicians such as Herman Mashaba are calling on the government to do much more. Mashaba is president of Action SA, a small but active party in South Africa’s parliament who has battled illegal immigration for 10 years.

Mashaba told Fox News Digital:

“Action SA is deeply frustrated by the government’s weak and reactionary response to South Africa’s immigration crisis, which is ultimately the consequence of three decades of ANC (the ruling party) failure to secure our borders.”

“Rather than presenting a meaningful shift in approach, which we believe must center on mass deportations and the urgent strengthening of immigration enforcement capacity, the government appears determined to simply repackage the same failed and outdated policies that have done nothing to address the consequences of weak border controls and chronic underinvestment in enforcing our immigration laws.”

Analyst Frans Cronje, president of the Washington-based Yorktown Foundation for Freedom, told Fox News Digital:

“As in Europe, South Africans have turned against their government on immigration policy. Polls conducted earlier this year ranked immigration as the second most pressing concern from South Africans behind unemployment. Overall, 23.0% of South Africans cited unemployment as the most pressing issue for the government to address, followed by 11.7% who cited immigration, 10.1% for cited corruption and 9.8% who cited crime.”

Cronje continued:

“Black South Africans (82% of the population) were three times as likely as their white counterparts to see immigration as a problem for the government to address. Hostility towards immigrants runs very high with regular protest marches and threats and intimidation directed at immigrant communities who are accused of taking jobs and businesses from South Africans, and driving high levels of crime.”

When asked why activists such as March and March are taking action, Ngobese-Zuma said:

“It’s the government that should be the one that’s making sure that when people say that they don’t want certain people in their communities, they remove them before the communities remove them themselves. I think the government is complacent about not only the issue of immigration, our government is just complacent about a lot of things, especially that have to do with crime.”

Protests against immigrants have turned violent in previous years, with 62 killed in riots in 2008 and at least five in 2015. Ngobese-Zuma agrees March and March members are gatvol—Afrikaans slang meaning completely fed up.

She told Fox News Digital:

“We don’t care which country comes forward and tells us that we are xenophobic. We’ve had enough, and nobody can tell us that we must now accept people staying in our country illegally.”

The South African government did not respond to requests for comment.

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