South Africa: March and March Wants to Arrest Migrants but the Law Says No

March and March says it will keep arresting undocumented foreign nationals. The law does not give it that power.

Speaking to SABC News on Sunday night, 7 June, following President Cyril Ramaphosa's address to the nation, March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma said citizens are entitled to enforce arrests under the Criminal Procedure Act and the Immigration Act. She cited both laws by name. Neither supports what she is claiming.

The Criminal Procedure Act does allow private citizens to arrest someone without a warrant, but only in specific circumstances. The person must be committing or attempting to commit a Schedule 1 offence. Schedule 1 covers serious crimes: murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery and fraud. Being in South Africa without documentation is not on that list.

The power to stop someone and demand proof of their right to be in the country belongs to police officers and immigration officers. It does not extend to private citizens acting on their own.

Ngobese-Zuma also cited Section 24 of the Immigration Act. That section deals with refugee status permits, not arrest powers.

Ramaphosa was direct in his address. The responsibility for enforcing immigration laws, he said, rests with the state alone.

"The government is trying to deal with the immigration crisis without the people," she said.

Anti-illegal migration groups have set a deadline of 30 June for undocumented foreign nationals to leave the country. What happens after that date, and who acts, remains a live dispute between the movement and the government.

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