Home Affairs withdraws asylum directive after court ruling floods refugee offices

The Department of Home Affairs has withdrawn its directive on asylum applications, after a Constitutional Court ruling opened access to the asylum process and a surge of applicants built long queues at refugee reception centres.

As SABC News reported on 9 October 2026, the withdrawal follows that surge and comes amid concern over the queues and planned protests by anti-immigration groups. SABC News reporter Lutendo Bobodi reported from Musina in Limpopo that the province was relatively quiet.

The directive governed how the department handled asylum applications. Its withdrawal means the instruction that was in force is no longer the one officials work to. The Constitutional Court ruling that preceded it opened access to the asylum process, and the applications that followed are what the reception centres have been absorbing.

The effect is felt at the counters. Refugee reception centres are where a person registers an asylum claim, is interviewed and is issued the documentation that follows from it. When applications rise quickly, the queue at the door is the first thing to lengthen, and the processing behind it is the second.

That is the pressure the withdrawal responds to. It is an administrative step by the department, not a change to the law on who may apply or on what grounds.

Musina sits on the border with Zimbabwe and is one of the places where this pressure is most visible. The SABC News report described Limpopo as relatively quiet, which matters in a week when anti-immigration groups had advertised protests.

No group, movement or individual may enforce immigration law. That authority belongs to the state, exercised through Home Affairs, the police and the courts. A self-declared deadline carries no standing in law, and a blockade that stops a person reaching a clinic or a reception centre is a crime and not a protest tactic.

The department has not said what replaces the withdrawn directive. Until it does, applicants and the officials who serve them are working without the instruction that was in place when the queues formed.

The Enquirer has asked the Department of Home Affairs what the withdrawal changes for people already in the queue, what interim instruction officials are working to, and when a replacement will be issued. We will publish the answers when they come.

Source: SABC News, Migration Crisis | Limpopo relatively quiet - Lutendo Bobodi reports