The JCPS cluster met on Monday to address calls to have illegal foreign nationals removed from South Africa by the end of June.
Deputy ministers from the justice, crime prevention and security (JCPS) cluster will be deployed to communities to ensure protests against illegal immigration are conducted peacefully.
Ministers and deputies from multiple departments met on Monday to address the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment spreading across South Africa.
Last week saw protests in multiple provinces, some needing police intervention as protestors began threatening the safety of foreign nationals and their property.
March and March, one of the organisations leading the protests, has since set a 30 June deadline for illegal foreign nationals to leave the country.
While the JCPS cluster supported the right to protest, activist groups have argued that South Africa’s problems are structural and historical, dating back long before the influx of foreign nationals.
‘We are not xenophobic’
Chairperson of the JCPS cluster, Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, accepted that citizens wanted to see action from the government, stating the ministers would be sent to monitor the situation on the ground.
Kubayi added that where illegal foreign nationals were found, they would be dealt with in accordance with the law, and that criminality would also not be tolerated from South Africans.
“Those who commit crimes are criminals, irrespective of whether they are South African or non-South African,” the justice minister said.
Kubayi agreed that the government needed to respond to the underlying factors, but stressed that foreign nationals also had rights.
“We are appealing to South Africans to know that there are migrants who are in the country legally. We are part of a global society.
“As a country, we are not xenophobic, and we don’t believe that South Africans are xenophobic. There are socio-economic issues that we’ve got to deal with and must respond to,” Kubayi said.
Not ‘just another shutdown’
March and March were present at Monday’s meeting at the Union Buildings, but members reportedly walked out early.
Organisation representative Sandile Dube told the media outside the gathering that the ministers were not respecting their 30 June deadline.
“They take it as just another shutdown. For us, it seems like it is a government that doesn’t take South Africans seriously.
“South Africans are saying they have had enough with illegal foreign nationals and they want them removed from this country,” Dube said.
He explained that the protests and looming 30 June action were not xenophobic, but aimed at protecting the safety, security and interests of South Africans.
Dube also dismissed suggestions that the protests were tribal in origin, explaining that March and March had mobilised communities from the Western Cape to Limpopo.
“This is just not a Zulu problem, it’s a South African problem; the issue of illegal foreign nationals,” he concluded.
‘Spatial and educational engineering’
Six civil society groups, including Section27 and Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia, denounced March and March and other groups who “sought to spread fear and division”.
Since mid-2025, protestors have targeted schools and hospitals to illustrate their belief that illegal foreign nationals were absorbing resources meant for locals.
The civil society groups jointly stated last week that resource shortages, poverty, unemployment and institutional failings had existed since the early days of the democratic dispensation.
“These issues are the product of apartheid’s spatial and educational engineering, compounded by government underfunding, corruption and poor implementation.
“Research consistently shows that anti-immigration sentiment rises when people feel economically insecure and politically abandoned – not because migrants are actually taking resources, but because scapegoating is easier than holding those in power accountable,” the groups stated.
They said the Department of Home Affairs needed to address its internal processes, the Department of Education needed to ensure the safety of foreign pupils and that police needed to protect foreign communities.
“We call on political leaders, community organisations, and media to cease using migration as a convenient explanation for complex structural failures.
“Doing so is not only dishonest, but it is dangerous and redirects legitimate public frustration and anger away from those who are actually responsible and onto the most vulnerable people in our communities,” the civil society groups concluded.
