By Nabeelah Mia, Head of Penal Reform and Detention Monitoring Programme at Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR).
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In migration management, numbers are not just statistics; they shape public perception, drive political narratives, and influence government spending. When accurate, they can foster a nuanced understanding of migration and guide evidence-based, humane policy. When inflated or incomplete, they fuel fear. In South Africa, we have a numbers problem: not just in how they are used, but in how they are hidden.
128 People Per Day: But Who Are They?
In the 2025 financial year, the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) deported around 47,000 people – the highest in five years and even surpassing France’s deportations. Beyond this headline figure, the trail of information runs cold. DHA no longer publishes publicly available, disaggregated deportation data. There is no breakdown by gender, age, nationality, vulnerabilities, or documentation status.
We cannot say how many were failed asylum seekers, how many were children, or how many returned after being deported. Without this data, civil society cannot craft targeted interventions, assist the most vulnerable, or effectively advocate for alternatives to immigration detention.
Millions Spent: Benefits Unclear
In January 2025, the Minister of Home Affairs claimed that deportations cost R300 million annually. By March, his figure to Parliament had dropped to R78 million. Lindela Repatriation Centre (which is the country’s main immigration detention facility) costs taxpayers around R51 million per year to operate. However, the precise cost of detention and deportation remains unclear. This is a question of budget justice: what are we getting in return for this multi-million-rand expenditure? Evidence from countries like Canada shows that alternatives to detention can reduce costs dramatically by 93% while still meeting government objectives.
The immigration detention and deportation system in South Africa operates in a climate of secrecy. The lack of accessible, detailed statistics is not accidental, it shields the system from accountability and allows harmful practices to continue out of public sight. Without transparent data, the public cannot measure the human cost, civil society cannot hold the state to account, and policymakers cannot make informed decisions. It is not only a governance failure; it is a democratic one.
It is in this spirit that, as a programme, we believe that numbers do not tell the whole story but without them, we cannot tell the story at all. Transparency in migration statistics is not just a technical issue; it is a matter of justice, accountability, and human rights.
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This article was originally published by Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) on 2 September 2025.
More information about LHR’s detention monitoring unit can be found here.
