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By Lynsey Chutel and John Eligon
Photographs via João Silva
Lynsey Chutel and Joao Silva reported from Musina, a town near the South Africa-Zimbabwe border. John Eligon reported from Johannesburg.
Around 7 a. m. , lines of shoppers snake past the department store on the main advertising thoroughfare in Musina, a bustling South African border town where thousands of people arrive from neighboring Zimbabwe to buy food, clothing and other hard-to-collect necessities. House.
A few miles away at the border, vans bearing the stamp of South Africa’s new Border Patrol inspect the barbed rope fence, trying to stop others from crossing illegally, defying bandits, crocodiles and the Limpopo River. The border force represents an effort by the administration, months before national elections, to heed the popular call and crack down on migrants sneaking into the country.
Musina, surrounded by farms and a copper mine, is where the government’s harsh immigration policy collides with a sensitive truth that many South Africans are reluctant to admit: that even other people who cross the border illegally can be smart for the country. .
Without them, “Musina will be a big ghost town,” said Jan-Pierre Vivier, a South African who owns a butcher shop with his family that caters to immigrant customers.
Just as politicians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere make a living promising stricter borders and mass deportations, their South African counterparts are launching a sweeping crackdown on foreigners to attract voters, betting on similar, unfounded fears that immigrants are fueling crime and delinquency. stealing jobs.
South Africa has its own struggles with poverty and extreme inequality, but it is wealthy compared with some of its neighbors, making it a tempting destination for migrants from Africa and beyond.
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