South Africa | Cabinet approves revised white paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection

The Minister of Home Affairs announced the Cabinet’s approval of the revised white paper on citizenship, immigration and refugee protection, which outlines policy priorities for fundamental reform of South Africa’s citizenship, immigration and refugee protection frameworks.

Key takeaways:

Goal: The goal of the revised white paper is to reduce fraud and abuse, enhance national security, improve service delivery through digital transformation and promote economic development.

Next steps: The Department of Home Affairs will begin drafting and tabling the requisite legislative amendments to implement the revised white paper.

Key reforms include: 

• The introduction of new visa categories for remote work, startups, skilled workers, sports and culture
• The replacement of corporate visas with sectoral work visas for specific industries
• A new, merit-based points-based system for certain visas and permanent residency
• The implementation of the “First Safe Country Principle,” which states that asylum seekers who have been granted refugee status or lawful protection in another country are ineligible for asylum in South Africa
• The introduction of objective criteria for naturalization, an annual window period for the submission of applications to prevent backlogs and a point-based system for economic pathways to citizenship

This alert has been provided by the BAL Global Practice Group. 

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