Asylum application backlog set to grow, with Refugee Reception Offices closed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic By Tariro Washinyira Refugees who arrived in South Africa after March 2020 have had no way to apply for asylum status. Accumulating new applications will put further pressure on attempts to clear an already huge backlog of asylum claims. A UNHCR-funded joint project...

The Supreme Court of Appeal has declared Home Affairs’s prohibition on asylum seekers marrying unconstitutional By Muchengeti Hwacha If you are an asylum seeker whose application for asylum in terms of Section 21 of the Refugee Act has not been finalised, you are still permitted to enter into a marriage. The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) affirmed this in a judgment handed down in...

“The courts had spoken. We had to do it,” says Deputy Minister of Home Affairs By GroundUp correspondent The Port Elizabeth Refugee Reception Office was officially re-opened on Friday by Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba. The province has been without such a facility since Home Affairs unilaterally closed it in 2011. Following years of legal action, public outcry and civil society activism,...