South Africa withdraws asylum directive after reception offices overwhelmed

South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs said on 9 October that its director-general had withdrawn a directive governing asylum applications at Refugee Reception Offices after the offices were overwhelmed and officials faced safety risks. The directive, issued on 28 September following a Constitutional Court ruling, has been pulled, but the department says it must still comply with the court order. It has not set out the replacement procedure.

The withdrawal follows violent protests in Durban and Johannesburg’s Soweto township over asylum processing. Deutsche Welle reported on 8 October that vehicles were burned and shops looted in both places. The decision leaves asylum applicants and reception offices waiting for details of how the department will handle applications while it develops a new approach.

Why Home Affairs withdrew the asylum directive

Home Affairs described the directive as an operational attempt to put into effect a 7 July Constitutional Court judgment in the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town matter. It said the director-general issued the instructions to all Refugee Reception Offices without the knowledge of the home affairs minister or other political officeholders. The department rejected claims that the move was politically motivated; that is its account of how the directive was made.

Within days of the directive’s issue, reception-office operations were overwhelmed, Home Affairs said. It also said officials had been placed at risk and that serious threats to public safety and order had emerged. The department described these as consequences of immediate implementation that could not have been foreseen in the court order. It did not publish figures for applications received or specify the extent of disruption at individual offices in its withdrawal statement.

What the Constitutional Court ruling means for applicants

The July judgment remains the legal backdrop to the change. According to Associated Press reporting on 8 October, the ruling removed procedural barriers that had stopped some people from seeking asylum, including people who entered irregularly, lacked transit visas or missed reporting deadlines. Home Affairs said it still respected the judiciary and was committed to finding a way to comply with the order. Withdrawing an administrative directive does not itself withdraw a court judgment.

Access to the asylum process is distinct from the outcome of an application. AP reported, citing the government’s Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration, that the judgment allows claims to be assessed but does not automatically give applicants refugee status or permanent residence. That distinction matters amid disputes over the ruling: the reported change concerns whether people can bring claims for consideration, not whether every claim succeeds.

The Home Affairs statement does not explain what an applicant should expect at a particular Refugee Reception Office in the meantime. It does not say whether offices will use a temporary procedure, how they will manage queues or when a new system will be communicated. Those unanswered operational questions are especially consequential for people trying to submit claims under the court ruling, although the reviewed material does not measure any resulting delay or change in access.

What happened during the Durban and Soweto protests

The withdrawal came after protests over the ruling turned violent. AP reported on 8 October that at least 24 vehicles had been burned and shops looted in Soweto and Durban. It cited acting national police commissioner Lt. Gen. Puleng Dimpane as saying that 10 vehicles were torched in Soweto and 14 in Durban, with three people arrested in Durban. DW separately reported the same vehicle totals and looting in both locations.

DW reported that the unrest in Durban followed a demand that a refugee centre stop processing asylum applications. It said protests then spread to Soweto on Thursday. In an interview with SABC television cited by DW, Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Superintendent Xolani Fihla said vehicles had been set alight during clashes and that no injuries had been reported at that point. That statement was a report of the position then, not a final casualty count.

The unrest took place against months of anti-immigrant protests in South Africa, according to DW. The broadcaster reported that the court decision had drawn people to government refugee centres. Its account of the wider tensions provides context for the pressure on those centres, but does not establish how many applicants were eligible or how the withdrawn directive affected any individual claim.

What happens after the withdrawal

Home Affairs says its next step is a fresh operational process to comply with the Constitutional Court’s order. Until the department publishes that approach, the immediate, confirmed change is the withdrawal of its 28 September instructions to reception offices. The July judgment still governs the department’s obligation, while the procedure for applying it at those offices remains unspecified in the 9 October statement.