Illegal immigrants blamed for high  unemployment in SA?

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]702, [music] the big interview.

[00:00:04]And uh tension filled the streets of central Pretoria as hundreds of protesters took to the city center voicing anger over unemployment and the presence of undocumented immigrants, illegal immigrants.

[00:00:18]Joined by groups including Action SA and Operation Dudula, the march moved through the city with growing intensity, especially in areas known for high numbers of foreign nationals. Shop owners and quickly shut their doors bracing for trouble as police formed a barrier to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control. Protesters have accused undocumented immigrants of driving crime and unfair competition in local businesses calling for tougher immigration controls. Now, to unpack this complex and highly charged issue, we're joined by Professor Loren Landau, professor of migration and development at the University of Oxford and research press a professor at the Visa African Center for Migration and the Society.

[00:01:06]Professor Hi, good morning. Good to have you on 702.

[00:01:10]Good morning. Thank you. Right, it's a highly contentious issue. So, that I think is what frustrates I think when it comes to unemployment. They're talking they're taking aim at illegal foreigners. This situation could get way out of control. Looking at the figures, Professor, do we know how many jobs have been taken? Can we quantify this?

[00:01:32]I think it's impossible to quantify the full number of jobs. Many people, whether it's South Africans or foreigners, are working in the informal sector. We don't have fantastic data on this. But, if we look at the number of people who are out of work in South Africa, which numbers in the tens of millions, and we look at the number of immigrants in the country, it's very clear that most of the problem South Africa has with unemployment is due to factors that have nothing to do with immigration. But, what are those factors? What's driving this?

[00:02:03]Well, I think the question what's driving unemployment is broader economic challenges of infrastructure, water, investment, labor conditions, etc. I think what's driving the frustrations is that South Africans feel justifiably that they have not received what was promised to them in terms of of prosperity, physical security, access to housing, etc. And they're looking for someone to blame. And instead of giving credit for their their frustrations to to politicians, whether it's local or national, the conversation has been redirected.

[00:02:40]Politicians have nothing more to offer, so they're blaming an outsider. They're blaming immigrants. It's a classic part of a playbook of people who have very little left to give their their citizens.

[00:02:51]So, in other words, take aim at politicians and governments because they need to drive this employment.

[00:02:57]Professor, looking at this, I mean, if that did happen, if there was a surge of investment in this country, if we look at look at privatization and we we drove up the private markets, is there a way of having a coexistence here where we have immigration, not illegal immigration, but immigration and people having enough jobs?

[00:03:17]Well, I think if you look at at the country as it is, South Africa has been deeply entangled with the region in terms of of migration, in terms of its economy, trade with Mozambique, trade with Zimbabwe, trade with Lesotho, trade with Eswatini. This is South Africa's a sort of bread and butter. Immigration is part of that. Immigration is part of how South Africa gets the skills, how it gets the labor, how it gets people to move into areas that South Africans may not want to be teachers or nurses or or even agricultural workers.

[00:03:46]Yes, it's always going to be tense when you have a kind of economic downturn as we've had over the last few years when there's this sort of pressure. But, the truth is no country in the world has become prosperous if it's shut itself off from its neighbors. And I think that's a lesson that South Africa would do well to learn. But, then of course, we've got a problem with our porous borders. There have been attempts to to tighten this, but I think a lot of people would realize that people stream over the Limpopo River coming from Zimbabwe every every sort of Christmas, New Year, and you can see people going for back and forth. Is this the problem?

[00:04:22]Does this if you close the tap, so to speak, would we see a different scenario?

[00:04:28]Well, I think it is the problem in the sense that South Africans feel that immigration is out of control. And we've seen that around the world that when citizens feel that their borders are insecure, they will feel uneasy, they'll feel anxious.

[00:04:41]Is it a real problem in the sense that people Zimbabweans coming in across the border is why we have crime, is why we have unemployment? It's a very small part of the broader problem. I think what what we need to do though is move beyond this fantasy that you can close the border.

[00:04:57]South Africa's land borders are almost as long as the United States border with Mexico. The United States has enormous amount of resources. We've seen them deploy the military, drones, etc. They're not able to stop people coming across that border. South Africa will not be able to stop people coming into the country from around the region. So, what we need is a way to make that process safer for everyone, more legal, a way to track it. And instead, we we continue to just to hold on to this fantasy that we can just, as you say, shut off the tap. Yeah. But, Professor, looking at this, there is a major problem because you have somebody coming over our borders illegally. They may encounter a border guard, a bribe is paid. They may encounter the police, the same thing. Metro police, the same thing. Is it not a case of getting our systems right and making sure that that doesn't happen, that you can't do that, that they do get stopped?

[00:05:52]Absolutely. And I think that as you say, the problem yes, immigrants may be part of this corrupt exchange is always involved at least two parties. But, I think if we're if we're looking at trying to make the country safer, that corruption in the police has very little to do with immigration. It's also, can we make sure that they're not taking bribes from your local gangster in Dunoon who's running sort of protection rackets in the township? Can we make sure that they when they go and do labor inspections at a employment at a factory that the the boss is not paying them off to turn a blind eye to poor labor conditions.

[00:06:26]These are where we need to root out corruption. If the police were not corruptible, immigrants wouldn't be able to bribe them. Yeah. So, where do we go from here? And I'm actually staring at the TV right now in the studio and they've got images of what happened in Pretoria. This could have could have got way out of control. We saw this I think in 2008 and other times as well where xenophobia, we call it that, got way out of control. What do we need to do urgently to stop this?

[00:06:53]Well, we've heard Kgalema Motlanthe, Cyril Ramaphosa talk about the need to a strong response to xenophobia. The truth is that we know in many cases who's behind this, and it's not just the people marching on the street. These are organized, they're connected to political movements, they're connected to local leadership structures. There's a need for an investigation, there's a need for accountability. And I think there's also a need to hold leaders accountable when they use language like we've heard blaming immigrants for the problems, trying to divert attention away from corruption, from incompetence, from the fact that they don't have a plan for redeveloping South Africa.

[00:07:30]Professor, what's worrying me the most is we've got a local government election coming up very soon. And this could be used as a way to gain votes, to garner support. As you've said, there are those who are driving this. What sort of urgent action needs to happen to stop that? Because if that does happen, the situation could get way out of control because somebody wants to win their ward.

[00:07:51]Yeah, I think that this is a natural thing. And when you have when you're a local councilor, and the way our system works, they don't have many resources, they don't have a lot to offer. This is a way of mobilizing support. And I think what we need is a commitment from all of the political parties, large and small, to not use this kind of language, to develop a kind of code of ethics, and say, "Look, if you're going to win, you you have every right to go out and mobilize people, but you can't do it in a way that risks other people's lives."

[00:08:18]And and this is whether it's it's using language about race, and we've seen that being very sensitive, ethnicity, language, religion, those are not acceptable. This kind of language that is xenophobic, that is anti-foreigner, it should also be deemed unacceptable.

[00:08:33]>> Yeah. But, there are two schools of thought when it comes to Donald Trump and his policies. He's had ICE going in and removing people. We've seen footage of people being killed, etc., etc. Do we want that in the South Africa? How do we deal with illegal immigrants?

[00:08:49]I think there are probably many people in South Africa who would like that, who would like to see the police coming in and raiding. And and we've now seen the deployment of the military, not around immigration, but other things, that they would come in and raid.

[00:09:02]I think if you think about it a little bit more carefully, we know most interactions with the police in South Africa don't end well for the person who, you know, who's interacting. We don't want police coming into our community, going to schools, going to health centers. That's something we saw earlier in the year where people being refused access to health care because of of who they are. Is that the society we want to live in? Probably not. I think what we need instead is pragmatic migration reform, which recognizes that South Africa is is entangled with its region. And we need to fight the corruption, whether it's in the police or at the border or in in politics, so that people can feel confident that the government is actually on their side and don't need to turn to scapegoating foreigners.

[00:09:42]>> Yeah. Do we need to talk to our neighbors, Zimbabwe, even Mali, Tanzania, Mozambique governments there to say, "We are going to bring your foreigners back to you, your your nationals back to you." Do we need to have a more of a sort of a approach like that?

[00:09:57]Well, I mean I think that South Africa is already deporting people and people are being sent back, but is Zimbabwe a country that you negotiate with? Are they a country that cares particularly about the welfare of their people? I'm not sure. I'm not you know, people are being sent back to other countries. The question is whether that is a long-term strategy. It's extraordinarily expensive to send people back. Sending people back to Zimbabwe, back to Lesotho only means that they tend to come back again. So, I think we do need to to look at these with our eyes wide open. There's a lot of of symbolic politics of sending people, border controls, marching and and putting fences up, but I think in the long term, we need to look at what is the labor market need, what is it worth to to try to keep people out and how do we protect South African jobs and promote South African jobs, and immigration is a part of that story. Yeah. So, just to sum up, what does the government of national unity need to do because this is a ticking time bomb?

[00:10:55]Well, I think there's probably two things. I mean, one is to make a a strong commitment that they will not use hateful language, scapegoating language against any group in their campaigns, and I think more importantly, it's to take away the incentives for doing so, and that means holding people accountable when they foster violence, whether it's against foreigners or anyone else.

[00:11:14]Professor Loren Landau, professor of migration and development at the University of Oxford and research professor at Wit's African Centre for Migration and Society. Good to have you on 702 Breakfast Live. Reaction to what you've heard. My question to you, what does the government of national unity need to do to stop illegal immigration?

[00:11:36]Morning, Ryan and the team. Can we just also stop just emphasizing on only unemployment alone? Can we also just also focus on crime, and can we stop saying South Africans are lazy? I'm a South African, a hard working South African, just by the way. So, I'm one of many who are not lazy, number one.

[00:11:51]Number two is it's not that some are lazy. We just know our human rights and what we're worth, and that there are other people who are employing illegal foreigners and who are willing to take peanuts, but we are not willing to take peanuts. We also want our fair share because this is this is a democracy state that we live in. So, crime, unemployment, and they are illegal.