Redefining Belonging: South Africa’s 2024 White Paper Reshapes Asylum Policy

Abstract

Immigration and asylum laws worldwide continue to wrestle with the persistent, though often obscured issue of race. The 2025 United States Executive Order extending asylum eligibility to white South Africans exemplifies a racialized asylum framework revealing how race remains central to the architecture of international migration regimes. Yet racism is not confined to Western contexts. In South Africa, Black citizens historically oppressed under apartheid also perpetuate racial and xenophobic prejudices, often in ways that may be subconscious yet nonetheless damaging. The paradox is stark when juxtaposed with South Africa’s positioning on the global human rights situation. The country has assumed a prominent role in international justice, notably by initiating
proceedings before the International Court of Justice in South Africa v Israel. Domestically, however, South Africa’s failure to address recurrent xenophobic violence exposes a profound dissonance between rhetoric and reality. Violent episodes in 1998, 2008, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2025 against African migrants reveal enduring fractures that undermine human rights commitments and damage the country’s moral standing. This article adopts a thematic doctrinal approach, interpreting human rights instruments, statutory provisions, and leading judicial decisions, triangulated with policy materials and contextual evidence. The central contention is that, despite divergent legal frameworks, states collectively contribute to a systematic erosion of refugee protections. Employing the doctrinal legal analysis methodology informed by Critical Race Theory (CRT), the article argues that South Africa’s reconciliation project remains largely superficial: beneath the rhetoric of inclusivity, racialized and xenophobic structures persist, exposing contradictions at the heart of its human rights discourse.