ABSTRACT
South Africa has been a major destination for forced immigrants from across Africa, but more so from Zimbabwe. The major ‘push factors’ for these migrants range from wars, political persecution to serious poverty, hyper-inflationary trends and unemployment whilst the ‘pull factors’ to which members of poor households are responding include, inter alia, the relatively higher standard of living and the ‘promise’ of better job opportunities in South Africa. This chapter’s main hypothesis is that the influx of big numbers of irregular economic migrants or refugees from Zimbabwe into South Africa since independence in 1994 has revealed major immigration policy limitations on the part of the state, regional actors and intergovernmental agencies. Clearly, the imperativeness of a more coordinated and coherent response across states, agencies and policy fields cannot be over-emphasized.
This chapter will examine whether the policy boundaries in the recipient country need to be configured or re-configured to regularly manage the huge influx and the attendant levels of social protection required for both lawful and illicit labour migrants. In the process, the reaction of the South African government, which wavers between ‘soft’ and draconian, can be used as an important benchmark in analysing the state’s capacity to promote policies that help maximize the benefits and minimize the risks and cost of migration to itself as well as for the poor and vulnerable people and other migrants. The chapter will draw from various methodological approaches in enhancing the discussion on transforming the boundaries of policy areas in order to either build stronger border controls and ‘fortresses’ or promote the free-movement for all.
