Less than a week after President Cyril Ramaphosa and Kenyan President William Ruto stood at the Union Buildings promoting trade, investment and African integration, South Africa is sending envoys across the continent to explain its migration crackdown.
The diplomatic effort follows Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday, in which he announced a raft of measures aimed at tackling illegal immigration, including immigration courts, intensified deportations, labour migration quotas and tighter border controls.
The decision to dispatch envoys received far less attention than the enforcement measures themselves. Yet it may prove to be one of the most revealing aspects of the government’s response.
In an interview with Ghana’s Joy FM this week, International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola acknowledged that recent anti-foreigner tensions had affected South Africa’s relations on the continent.
Asked whether recent events had strained ties with African countries, Lamola replied: “Yes, it has.”
“That’s why we feel duty bound to explain to our African sister countries.”
The remarks suggest Pretoria is now dealing with more than a domestic migration debate. It is also trying to contain growing diplomatic fallout across Africa.
That fallout is most visible in Ghana.
In May, nearly 300 Ghanaians returned home from South Africa amid growing tensions around migration and anti-foreigner protests. Ghanaian authorities have since indicated that they are documenting losses suffered by Ghanaian-owned businesses and individuals, while compensation has become part of the public debate.
The issue has dominated news coverage in Ghana, where questions about the safety of African migrants and South Africa’s commitment to pan-African ideals have featured prominently.
South African officials, however, have pushed back against some of the claims.
Lamola told Joy FM that 74% of the Ghanaians who returned had overstayed their visas and had been declared undesirable under South African immigration laws.
“The only issue we are clarifying is that as we deal with the matter, let’s deal with it factually, not misinformation,” he said.
Throughout the interview, Lamola sought to draw a distinction between illegal immigration and hostility towards foreign nationals.
He repeatedly condemned attacks on migrants and stressed that immigration enforcement remained the responsibility of the state.
“There should be no such attacks against any foreign national,” he said.
“It is the responsibility of government and not private individuals.”
The compensation issue remains unresolved.
Lamola confirmed that compensation was among the issues being discussed, although he stressed that no decision had been taken and investigations were continuing.
“It is an issue that is being discussed,” he said.
He added that any decision would need to be informed by the facts of individual cases and that government had not adopted a formal position on compensation.
The dispute has exposed a growing tension at the heart of South Africa’s continental ambitions.
For years, Pretoria has positioned itself as one of the strongest advocates of African integration. It has championed freer trade, regional cooperation and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which seeks to create a single market across the continent.
Those ambitions were on full display during Ruto’s state visit.
Both governments spoke enthusiastically about expanding trade, increasing investment and strengthening cooperation between East and Southern Africa.
Yet at the same time, South Africa is introducing labour migration quotas, tightening border controls and intensifying deportations.
The contradiction has not gone unnoticed elsewhere on the continent.
Elijah Mwangi, an award-winning Kenyan business journalist, said many Kenyans struggle to reconcile South Africa’s integration agenda with recurring anti-foreigner tensions.
“When South Africa officially lifted visa requirements for Kenyans travelling with ordinary passports in 2023, many Kenyans interpreted this as deepened bilateral cooperation between the two states and so many don’t understand why a country that lifted visa requirements would turn against the same people when they visit South Africa,” he said.
While many welcomed Ramaphosa’s decision to engage African governments, scepticism remains.
“For many Kenyans, Ramaphosa’s statement is more of political rhetoric, unless the safety concerns are well taken care of this time,” Mwangi said.
More importantly, he argued that migration has become intertwined with the continent’s broader economic ambitions.
“The migration question must be addressed because it actually presents itself as the first technical barrier to trade.”
The observation speaks directly to the discussions that took place in Pretoria only days before Ramaphosa’s address.
At the state visit and business forum, political leaders and business executives repeatedly identified trade barriers, logistics bottlenecks and regulatory hurdles as obstacles to African growth.
Mwangi’s argument is that migration may now be joining that list.
If Africans increasingly feel unwelcome or unsafe moving across borders, the broader project of continental integration becomes more difficult to sustain.
Business is beginning to make the same connection.
Last week, Business Unity South Africa and Business Leadership South Africa warned that hostility towards foreign nationals risks damaging cross-border trade and South Africa’s relationships on the continent.
The organisations argued that anti-foreigner sentiment threatens trade corridors, strains diplomatic ties and undermines the environment in which South African companies operate elsewhere in Africa.
Their concerns reflect the extent to which migration has moved beyond the realm of domestic politics.
South African banks, retailers, telecommunications companies, insurers and industrial groups have spent decades building operations across the continent. Many of those investments were made on the assumption that Africa would become more integrated over time.
The current tensions are testing that assumption.
Throughout the Joy FM interview, Lamola repeatedly returned to one theme.
“South Africa itself is a product of the solidarity of the African continent,” he said.
The remark goes to the heart of Pretoria’s challenge.
South Africa’s democratic transition was supported by governments, liberation movements and citizens across Africa. That history has long underpinned Pretoria’s claim to leadership on continental issues.
Now government finds itself defending that legacy.
The envoys preparing to travel across Africa in the coming weeks will be carrying more than an explanation of migration policy.
They will be attempting to persuade governments, businesses and citizens that South Africa remains committed to the ideals of solidarity, cooperation and integration that have long defined its foreign policy.
Whether that message succeeds remains uncertain.
What is clear is that the migration debate has become more than an argument about visas, deportations and border controls.
It has become a test of South Africa’s credibility in Africa.
And as Pretoria seeks to convince the continent that it can tighten migration enforcement without abandoning its commitment to integration, it is confronting a question that will not be answered by envoys alone.
Can South Africa remain a champion of African integration while simultaneously pursuing one of its toughest migration crackdowns in years?
For many of its African partners, that remains an open question.
The diplomatic effort follows Ramaphosa’s address to the nation on Sunday, in which he announced a raft of measures aimed at tackling illegal immigration, including immigration courts, intensified deportations, labour migration quotas and tighter border controls.
