Expired visas see bans on the visa holder if they leave SA.
As South Africa implements its new immigration rules, various consular sections of embassies the world over are having to hastily inform their citizens of impending bans that they could face when exiting South Africa on an expired visa. This counts even if said travelers have made new applications within the stipulated time frames and are carrying the original application receipts.
As an example, the Danish Embassy in South Africa published on its website:
Dear Travellers (sic),
Please be informed that it has come to the Embassy’s attention, that South Africa has implemented new Immigration Rules as per the 26th May, which among other things, means that residing foreigners are no longer allowed to leave the country and re-enter without having valid residence permits in their passports.
Through concrete examples over the last week, the Embassy has been made aware of cases where citizens have been banned from re-entering the country for a year, because the receipts issued by Home Affairs upon renewal of the permits, no longer are accepted by the Immigration Authorities.
They also no longer issue fines, but only bans – typically by issuing the person in question a letter, or by stamping the passport.
Many local travel and immigration agencies are advising residents not to leave the country without the new permit already being inserted in the passport – despite the long processing times from Home Affairs.
The Embassy will update with more information, once this is available from Home Affairs.
The Consular Section @ the Embassy
This comes as Directive 9 was inserted by Jackie Mckay, Deputy Director General: Immigration Services at the Department of Home Affairs. It states, broadly speaking, that any foreigner, who attempts to depart the country after his or her visa has expired, will no longer be fined, but declared “undesirable” in terms of Section 27(3) of the Immigration act and be banned for a period of between twelve months and five years depending on the time period which has past since visa expiry and the number of previous transgressions in this regard. A submitted extension application and receipt thereof are not sufficient to prevent this measure.
This practice is already in place at the South African airports. As seen by the above-mentioned excerpt from the Danish Embassy in South Africa, it comes as a shock to most, even the related authorities.
