Immigration

What immigrants do in the holidays when it’s too expensive to travel home

Taurai Mari is from Zimbabwe, but he will be spending the December holidays in Cape Town. He has saved money to visit the city’s tourist destinations.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 19 December 2014

Parow’s block of flats from hell

Immigrants who live in Goodman Close and Le Ruth Close at 194 Voortrekker Road Parow are fed up with the awful conditions they live in.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 10 December 2014

Police fire rubber bullets in city centre

A man was injured when police fired rubber bullets at a crowd of about a thousand asylum seekers earlier today at the Home Affairs Temporary Refugee Centre on Cape Town’s foreshore. Witnesses say that a nine-month-old baby was also injured.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 27 November 2014

The long wait for a trading permit

At least 40 Zimbabwean informal traders fear they may lose their livelihoods after delays in getting informal trading permits from Fezeka City Council offices in Gugulethu.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 25 November 2014

Zimbabweans can now stay longer for the festive season

On Thursday, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba announced that Zimbabweans intending to travel home for the festive season will be able to do so even if their permits have not been issued.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 21 November 2014

We know how to bear hardships, says Chinese trader in Khayelitsha

Next to a small fruit stand and across the street from a hodgepodge of street vendors, Cuiyi Lin sits in front of her furniture store every day waiting for customers. She is the only non-African in the area.

Joyce Xi

Feature | 19 November 2014

Zimbabweans afraid to go home for Christmas

Zimbabweans whose permits expire on 31 December and whose applications for new permits have not yet been processed face a difficult decision about whether to return home for Christmas - and risk trouble at the border on their return to South Africa.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 10 November 2014

How an organisation is helping immigrant children with disabilities

It is not easy to raise a child with disabilities if you are a single mother and a foreign national living in a township in South Africa. Fortunately, there is the PASSOP Disabled Children Support Group.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 5 November 2014

Home affairs tells asylum-seeking married couple to remarry

Christine Ntumba is an asylum seeker from the DRC. And she’s in a desperate situation. Her baby, Aradi, is sick and cannot get the medical attention he needs because Christine cannot obtain vital documents because of bureaucratic hurdles.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 31 October 2014

Peeing into a plastic bottle on the long road from Lindela

Tapiwa, 35, was deported to Zimbabwe in August via the notorious Lindela Repatriation Centre. A few days later, he was back in South Africa. He told Tariro Washinyira his story.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 27 October 2014

Responding rationally to Ebola

Tightening border controls is not the way to prevent an outbreak of Ebola in South Africa, writes Nathan Geffen.

Nathan Geffen

Opinion | 16 October 2014

How I crossed the border illegally

Every day, hundreds of Zimbabweans cross the Beit Bridge border across the Limpopo River into South Africa - some of them illegally. GroundUp reporter Tariro Washinyira joined them.

Tariro Washinyira

News | 13 October 2014

Zimbabweans report glitches in permit system

Zimbabweans were promised in August by the Department of Home Affairs that they could apply for the Zimbabwean Special Permit (ZSP) from October 1, 2014, but many have been unable to.

Thembela Ntongana

News | 8 October 2014

Court victory for asylum seekers

Somali and Ethiopian asylum seekers and refugees have scored a longed-for victory against official xenophobia – the Supreme Court of Appeal has thrown out key elements of ‘Operation Hardstick’.

Carmel Rickard

News | 6 October 2014

The week in activism

This week we look at Sonke’s call on government to support an important medical trial and the court ruling in the Limpopo foreign traders’ case brought by Lawyers for Human Rights.

Thembela Ntongana

News | 2 October 2014

New immigration laws here to stay - minister

On Tuesday at a media briefing in Cape Town on the implementation of the new immigration regulations, Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba announced that the regulations will stay despite them having created much anxiety.

Tariro Washinyira and Thembela Ntongana

News | 16 September 2014