South Africa: Asylum system to move online on November 10, with 120,000 pending appeals

The South African Department of Home Affairs will launch an online registration and appointment platform for asylum applications by November 10, 2026, it announced on October 11, 2026, during a press briefing by the inter-ministerial committee on migration in Pretoria. The system, which will be deployed in phases and backed by biometrics, is intended to accelerate file processing and verify the identity of applicants, according to SAnews, the government agency, and the daily newspaper Sowetan.

An online receipt, not a status

In practical terms, the applicant will first register online to declare their intention to seek asylum. A receipt will be issued to them, accompanied by a reference number and an appointment at a refugee reception office, where their biometric data will be collected. According to the Sowetan, Minister of Justice Mmamoloko Kubayi, who chairs the inter-ministerial committee, clarified that this document is "not a section 22 visa" nor a recognition of status. However, it serves as proof of the intention to seek asylum and triggers the protection provided by law: border and office agents must not arrest, detain, or deport a holder of a valid receipt solely on the grounds that they do not have a visa, while their application is being processed.

After the fires in Soweto and Durban

The announcement comes three weeks after a crisis. A directive dated September 28, 2026, opening the filing of applications at Home Affairs offices, issued in accordance with a Constitutional Court ruling on July 7, 2026, had overwhelmed the counters and caused widespread unrest, including fires in Soweto and Durban. The directive has been withdrawn. The ministry asserts that this withdrawal does not call into question its commitment to opening the procedure, including to foreigners who entered irregularly, as required by the ruling.

74 lawyers for a massive backlog

Minister of Home Affairs Leon Schreiber quantified the scale of the delay: approximately 120,000 appeals are reportedly pending, an order of magnitude he did not confirm in the session while promising the exact figure. He claims to have inherited a department where only nine people were processing appeals and to have recruited 74 lawyers, resulting in a reduction of the backlog by about 20% over the last fiscal year. A first application is processed in about thirty days, according to him: it is at the appeal stage that everything gets stuck. The minister also reiterated that those whose claims are definitively rejected will be deported. Pretoria must return to the Constitutional Court to obtain a supervision order, while a hearing is set for October 29, 2026, before the Gauteng High Court, which is seized with contradictory decisions regarding asylum seekers.