Members of the Patriotic Alliance are camping along the banks of the Limpopo River to block Zimbabweans from returning illegally to South Africa.

Over the festive season, thousands of undocumented Zimbabweans and Mozambicans who work in South Africa went home for the Christmas holidays.

Now PA founder Gayton McKenzie said his party had resorted to doing the jobs of the police, the military and the Border Management Authority.

"There is a clear collusion between these people and the local farmers who have been asking us why we are here.

"We have been here for days and there are no police or the military.

"Some people say we need a South Africa that is free of borders. What they don't know is that we are already living in a borderless South Africa," said McKenzie.

In videos posted by the PA, its members are seen chasing Zimbabweans across the river. On the other side, boat owners are earning a living ferrying people across the river to South Africa.

McKenzie said illegal criminal syndicates were crossing unpatrolled parts of the border fence to sell weapons and explosives to illegal miners in Limpopo and Gauteng.

"We have hundreds and hundreds of PA members here intercepting people who come here with illegal cigarettes, dynamite and unlicensed firearms.

"An illegal foreigner can literally come into SA and kill someone and casually stroll back to Zim," said McKenzie.

Another anti-immigration party, ActionSA, has decried the destruction of the recently erected R37 million border fence.

ActionSA founder Herman Mashaba said: "Our porous borders are emblematic of the rise in lawlessness in South Africa. They leave South Africans vulnerable to challenges such as illegal immigration, smuggling of counterfeit goods and drugs, human trafficking, stock theft, poaching and lost trade revenue."