South Africa's Immigration Policy Based On False Claims - Experts

According to The Conversation, a long-awaited policy statement - called a White Paper - outlining proposed changes to the country's asylum and immigration system offers vague proposals to address problems that are less about immigration than bureaucratic and political mismanagement, providing a "smokescreen" to hide government faults.

This comes after Human Rights Watch said the country is "taking an axe to refugee rights and chipping away at the country's commitments under the United Nations' 1951 Refugee Convention".

Previously, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said: "It is not surprising that South African courts developed jurisprudence regarding asylum and refugees in the absence of reservations and exceptions ... which is always unfavourable to the interests of the state," at a briefing regarding the white paper.