Phoenix residents take the anti-immigration fight to their own streets as fewer than 30 turn out for the plan

Phoenix residents who say undocumented migration is changing their suburb have taken their demand for enforcement into a civic organisation of their own, with Voice of Phoenix joining the March and March movement at a community meeting on Saturday.

Fewer than 30 people attended the meeting, which also invited March and March, ward councillor candidates from several political parties and the local community. Voice of Phoenix leader Vassi Govender told those in the room that the organisation was formed by local activists to fight poor service delivery and unemployment in Phoenix, and that its message to government is to stop illegal immigration, deport those in the country unlawfully, and attend to citizens’ concerns.

“South Africans, regardless of colour and gender must form a united front against the illegal foreign nations in our country,” Govender said. “The issue of illegal foreigners affects every citizen. This is a call for lawfulness. We have had enough of the illegal immigration in our country.”

Govender said Voice of Phoenix had joined hands with March and March to deal with the issue in Phoenix and the surrounding areas, and that the movement’s members were dispersing undocumented foreigners in the Durban CBD, after which, he claimed, they move to Phoenix, Verulam and Tongaat. Asked for the rate of illegal immigration in Phoenix, he said he did not have proper statistics, but claimed that all roads in Phoenix had “some illegal foreigners”.

“All I can say is that our community has been invaded,” he said. “We are not fighting humanity, but a system which has been brought to us. That system is illegal immigration.”

He called on Phoenix residents to join the group and said he supported March and March but did not condone vigilantism or damage to property, even property belonging to people in the country unlawfully. His message to foreign nationals was that those seeking asylum should go to a nearby country rather than crossing several to reach South Africa, and that those who come should abide by the country’s laws.

The concerns raised from the floor were concrete and local. Resident Hansraj Ballyraj said he had come because he cared about the future of the country and its children. He claimed that many barbershops were being opened by undocumented foreigners without local citizens being hired, and that money made in those shops was crossing the country’s borders illegally. He also said it was difficult for children to get places at local schools because of the number of foreign national children enrolled at them.

“I appreciate what Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma and her team are doing,” Ballyraj said. “They must continue until we win this war of illegal immigration, and they have my full support.”

Govender raised the same pressure from his own family’s experience, saying he had paid an average of R2,000 for his granddaughter’s school fees and had to produce an identity document and documentation about her before she was accepted. He then claimed, without offering evidence, that he knew of a school with 800 pupils who have no proper documentation.

March and March leader Lindani Xulu welcomed the civic organisation’s support and said the movement had a branch in Phoenix that it would use in its campaign against undocumented foreigners in the area. He urged residents to join community organisations so they could find out what was happening around them. “We must unite and have a purpose to fight for our country,” he said. “South Africa belongs to all its people.”

March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma did not attend. Govender said she stayed away for security reasons.

As IOL reported on 19 October, the meeting took place against a background of anti-immigration protest in Durban that has escalated into arson and looting, with foreign-owned shops, residential properties and warehouses set alight. The Phoenix meeting was told that its purpose was to discuss a way forward on illegal immigration in the area, and the speakers drew a line between their campaign and that damage.

What the meeting did not produce was a number. The claim that Phoenix is being overrun rests, in the account given on Saturday, on what residents see on their roads, in their schools and in their shopping centres rather than on any count from Home Affairs, the police or the education department. Govender said so himself when asked. The school figure was asserted, not shown. The barbershop claim was made from the floor, not from a payroll or a tax record.

That does not make the pressure residents describe less real to them. It does mean the case for enforcement in Phoenix has not yet been made in figures, and the institutions that hold those figures, Home Affairs on documentation and permits, the police on arrests and deportations, and the KwaZulu-Natal education department on enrolment, have not put them on the table in public.

The Enquirer is putting those questions to Home Affairs, the SAPS provincial office in KwaZulu-Natal and the provincial education department, and will publish what they provide on the numbers in Phoenix, on school enrolment and documentation, and on removals from the area.