Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee has thrown its weight behind President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan to clamp down on illegal immigration, urging government departments to move quickly and turn the President’s directives into action on the ground. The committee says the time for talking has passed, and that the measures announced over the weekend need to be felt at borders, in workplaces, and across the agencies meant to enforce the country’s laws.
The call follows Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday, delivered against a backdrop of rising tension over undocumented migrants and louder demands from sections of the public for them to leave the country.
In that address, the President acknowledged thatordinary South Africans are worried, and laid out a package of interventions aimed at tightening enforcement, securing the borders, stamping out corruption, and bring migration under firmer regulation.
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, Mosa Chabane, said the committee fully supports the President’s sharpened approach, and warned that dragging fet on implementation could chip away at the authority of the Head of State himself.
“We welcome the clear and comprehensive directives issued by the President. We urge government departments to urgently implement all the plans outlined, particularly as many of these initiatives have already featured in the annual performance plans of various departments,” Chabane said.
He was blunt about the stakes, adding that “a failure to implement these measures will undermine the authority of the Head of State.”
Chabane said the President’s reaffirmation of the state’s power to enforce the law mattered all the more at a moment of heightened anti-foreigner sentiment, and pressed law enforcement agencies to intensify their efforts so that immigration laws actually bite.
He also backed Ramaphosa’s pledge to confront corruption, which he described as a force that has quietly hollowed out South Africa’s immigration system from the inside.
“Corruption is a cancer that erodes both the spirit and the intent of our immigration laws. Eradicating corruption will help ensure that our laws are implemented effectively and are not undermined,” he said.
Why cordinated action on illegal immigration is now the priority
The committee’s message is that no single department can fix this alone. Chabane stressed that what the country needs is a coordinated, government-wide response built around laws that are already on the books, rather than fresh promises layered on top of old ones. Tackling illegal immigration, in his view, depends less on new legislation and more on the political will to enforce what already exists.
He also welcomed the President’s intention to engage fellow African states directly, noting that migration across the region is bound up with deper socio-economic and developmental pressures that South Africa cannot solve at its borders alone.
Several concrete commitments from the State of the Nation Address form the backbone of the plan. The table below sets out the key interventions and the departments responsible for delivering them.
| Intervention | Lead department | Intended outcome |
|---|---|---|
| More labour inspectors | Employment and Labour | Stronger compliance with labour legislation |
| More immigration officers | Home Affairs | Tighter enforcement of immigration laws |
| Drones and new technology | Border Management Authority | Detect and prevent illegal crossings |
| Border infrastructure upgrades | Public Works and Infrastructure | Secure ports of entry and weak spots |
The takeaway is that enforcement is being treated as a staffing and technology problem as much as a policy one, with extra bots on the ground at workplaces and ports of entry sitting alongside investment in surveillance and physical infrastructure.
Chabane singled out the Border Management Authority for particular attention, pointing out that persistent funding shortfalls continue to hold the agency back from carying out its full mandate.
He said investment in drones and modern monitoring tools would sharpen the authority’s ability to spot and stop illegal crossings before they happen, rather than reacting after the fact.
The chairperson also flagged the role of the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, which is responsible for building and maintaining the physical structures the Border Management Authority relies on.
Stronger infrastructure at ports of entry and at the country’s more vulnerable stretches of border, he argued, is essential to closing the gaps that allow undocumented entry and to lifting South Africa’s overall border management capability.
For now, the pressure sits squarely on the departments named in the President’s plan. The committee has set a clear marker: the directives are welcome, the budgets and performance plans largely already exist, and what remains is delivery. Whether that delivery materialises in the months ahead will say a great deal about how seriously the state intends to treat both its borders and the authority of the office that issued the instructions.