IN THE NEWS: New immigration regulations cause public outcry

The new regulations in terms of the Immigration Act that recently came into effect have caused a lot of outrage in the media in the past month. The problem seems to be key sections of the regulations which affect multi-national families, travellers who are minors and immigration practitioners.

A number of families have already resorted to legal action against government’s heavy-handedness when it comes to South Africans married to foreigners. The new regulations require the foreign spouse to apply for a spousal visa in their country of origin – regardless of the fact that they have been living in South Africa for many years. The spouses are apparently being detained at airports and sent back to their “home” countries after being declared “undesirable persons.” This situation is obviously untenable and it is probably a foregone conclusion that Home Affairs will receive a thorough thrashing from the courts over this imbecilic approach to what purports to be a noble goal – the clamping down on human trafficking.

Two other issues that are causing massive disruption and unhappiness include the fact that minors now have to travel with unabridged birth certificates in addition to their passports and immigration practitioners are no longer recognised, thus potentially robbing thousands of South Africans of their livelihoods. Role-players in the tourism industry have already predicted that these regulations, if they are not amended soon, will cause massive losses to the tourism industry.

While one can definitely applaud the government’s aims at clamping down on the scourge of human and child trafficking, it is deeply worrying and disappointing that it has chosen to adopt an obtuse, hammer-like approach to a problem that needs intelligence and finesse to resolve properly. These regulations ultimately seem to harm a lot more people than they seek to protect.

#Visaregulations #travel #passport #unabridgedbirthcertificate #children #HomeAffairs