Immigration Laws: April, 2000 - Number #23

Western Union, with 75,000 outlets in 175 countries and worldwide revenues of $5.2 billion in 1999, announced plans to expand services in Africa to migrants and others without bank accounts who need to send money across borders. The average remittance in South Africa is R2300, and is sent at a cost of R120. Western Union estimated that R1 billion is transferred across southern African borders each year using an informal system of taxi and bus drivers.

Western Union says the average cash transfer from persons in the US sending money abroad is $300, compared to $1,000 from many Asian countries with migrants, such as Japan and Hong Kong.

South Africa. The South African government released a White Paper on international migration in March 1999; a bill to enact its major provisions into law, including employer sanctions, is to be introduced before June 2000.

The bill simplifies the current entry permit system, establishing a single three-month entry permit for students, tourists and business people, and giving the immigration service wide discretion to grant entry permits to investors and skilled workers. South African employers who want to bring foreign professionals into the country would have to pay a new tax.

In December 1999, the South African High Court ruled that a foreign partner living with a South African citizen or permanent resident, in a same-sex relationship, could apply for permanent residency by proving that the partnership had existed for at least two years. The court refused to extend the same benefit to unmarried partners in permanent heterosexual relationships. The South African Democratic Party requested on March 13 that the government consider granting the same residency to those in unmarried heterosexual relationships.

South African immigration authorities deported more than 1,500 Zimbabwean illegal immigrants on March 23. The action follows increased raids by South African authorities in Hillbrow and greater Johannesburg areas, where crime is reported to be high. In February and March, 2000, an estimated 6,000 illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe have been deported.

In Zimbabwe, thousands of blacks in March 2000 invaded nearly 650 commercial farms owned by the descendants of the white settlers who once governed this former British colony. Almost half of the land in Zimbabwe, a country of 12 million, is owned by 70,000 whites. The occupation of white-owned farms began in February 2000, after voters rejected President Robert Mugabe's proposal to strengthen his powers and give his ruling party the authority to seize farms from whites and redistribute them to blacks.

"Over 1,500 Zimbabwean illegal immigrations deported," BBC News, March 23, 2000.
"DP to Request Meeting on Immigration of Unmarried Partners," South African Press Agency, March 13, 2000.