Why South Africa’s new plan to fortify its borders won’t stop irregular migration
INOCENT MOYO, Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Zululand SOUTH Africa has just passed a new law in response to growing concerns in the country about its porous borders. The socioeconomic and security dangers posed by having large numbers of undocumented migrants have become key political issues in the country in recent times. It’s difficult to ascertain how many undocumented migrants there are in the country, leading to exaggerated estimates. According to Statistics South Africa figures from 2011, legal migrants were about 4.2% of the total population, or about 2.1 million people. Over…