ISSUE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IS FUELLED BY SOCIAL MEDIA

By Sharon Ekambaram
KAAX members

The framing of the issue of “illegal immigrants” is a construction fuelled by unregulated social media platforms.

There is no substantiated evidence to back up the claim that there are millions of “illegal immigrants” in South Africa.

There is also very little reporting that most research shows that immigrants, documented or not, are usually a net positive for a country.

This is a crude form of racism and xenophobia, and related utterances amount to hate speech and are thus unconstitutional and unlawful as outlined in law and policy PEPUDA -Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (Act 4 of 2000).

There also exist in policy the National Action Plan to Combat Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (NAP) which is the government’s official blueprint for eradicating inequality, prejudice, and systemic discrimination.

This was approved by Cabinet in February 2019.

Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia subscribes to principles and values of pan Africanism.

We view xenophobia and discrimination based on one’s nationality as a continuation of our heinous past of apartheid and colonisation.

A past that through state enforced racist policies subjected Black African people to the status of subhuman beings regulated through documentation and the indignity of the dom pass and pass laws.

Today referring to a fellow human being as “illegal” especially if this is primarily against our black African brothers and sisters from the African continent, again perpetuates this stigma and racism that predominantly Black people suffer globally.

These divisions were created by the colonisation and apartheid.

The repressive measures that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is taking against migrants in the US who come from the global South and the fortification of Europe to keep out people from the global south are cases in point.

Poverty and inequality in South Africa should be declared a national disaster.

It is a national disaster because of systemic unemployment and ongoing crisis especially of young people.

Not because of the migrants.

It is a national disaster because of the extent of corruption and mismanagement.

Reports in 2024, indicated that corruption losses amounted to R3bn linked to corruption networks at Tembisa Hospital in suspicious transactions initially flagged by whistleblower Babita Deokaran.

Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke, Material Irregularities Report (2023) stated the following: “The local government environment is complex as it is riddled with instability at accounting officer level; repeated disclaimed audit opinions; municipal public accounts committees not always attending to matters such as non-compliance with legislation, procurement deviations and financial misconduct.”
These are the reasons why the state has failed to transform our society a constitutional obligation.

The inequality is defined by class, race and gender as defined by racist policy of the colonisers and apartheid.

Hence the need for redress for the unfair priviledge afforded the white minority under apartheid.

To blame the migrants for these ills is counter revolutionary and deliberately detracts us from addressing the very real problems facing the black working class in SA.

We should be building solidarity and strengthening the campaign for a universal income grant a non means tested grant and a wealth tax.

Progressive policies that speak to wealth re distribution.

The wealth inequality in SA is staggering.

Chatterjee, A., Gethin, A. & Czajka, L. (2020) found that the wealthiest 0.01% of South African adults—approximately 3,500 individuals—owned about 15% of the country’s household wealth, more than the bottom 90% of the adult population combined.