South Africa may offer the clearest example that immigration restrictionism is gaining popularity globally—not just in high-income countries. There, on the same Soweto streets that the anti-apartheid movement gained force decades ago, a group called Operation Dudula has become the face of a new kind of antipathy towards unauthorized immigrants (“Dudula” is a Zulu word meaning “force out”). Operation Dudula has been gaining prominence over the last several years, growing from a loose-knit vigilante group into a formal political party. Notably, both the leaders of the group and South Africa’s major immigrant populations are Black, and so immigration tensions do not map neatly onto racial issues, as they often do elsewhere. The group has made dire claims that migrants without regular status are taking jobs that ought to go to South Africans, draining social services, and increasing crime. While these claims are generally unfounded, the group has nonetheless contributed to many South Africans’ false perceptions about immigration in their country. In recent weeks, Operation Dudula activists have delivered “warning letters” to schools in Soweto, a township just outside Johannesburg, demanding they prioritize education for South Africans over the foreign born. Earlier in the year, the group targeted health-care facilities that it claimed were inappropriately offering medical treatment to unauthorized immigrants. Local police recently opened an investigation into allegations that a 1-year-old child died when his mother, an immigrant from Malawi, was prevented from accessing a health clinic; Operation Dudula has denied the allegation. South Africa is no stranger to migration tensions. The country boasts the largest economy in Africa and one of the continent’s largest immigrant populations, especially in the more than 30 years since the end of apartheid. Concerns about immigration are often tied to the high levels of economic and social inequality that continue to plague the country, as the Migration Information Source has previously examined. Immigration was a major theme of last year’s elections, which saw the African National Congress (ANC) lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since apartheid ended in 1994. Operation Dudula barely registered in that election, but elements of its message were embraced by other ANC alternatives. To be sure, Operation Dudula is not the only South African voice calling for a more muscular migration enforcement policy, and similar political campaigns can likely be found in many countries with sizable immigrant populations. But it illustrates the wide reach of immigration-related anxieties, and the fact that the Global North does not have a monopoly on restrictions. All the best, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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