South Africa's asylum system has been ordered back open. The Gqeberha Refugee Reception Office is once again accepting new asylum applications after a Home Affairs circular issued Sept. 28 — the first time in years that all asylum seekers, including those who entered the country unlawfully or hold no visa, have a path into the system.
The reopening follows a July 7 Constitutional Court ruling confirming a 2025 Western Cape High Court decision that struck down 2020 Refugees Act amendments. Those provisions had let Home Affairs turn away anyone not entering through an official port or reporting within five days. The court found the rules could send people back to danger without any refugee status determination, in breach of international law.
The amendments had choked the system: just 91 transit visas were issued between April 2022 and March 2024. Offices themselves were closed from March 2020 to May 2022 during the Covid period, and the backlog has ballooned — the Refugee Appeals Authority told parliament in May it faces roughly 161,000 outstanding cases. In 2017, first interviews granted 479 claims while rejecting 25,713.
The ruling was driven by a challenge from the Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town, with Lawyers for Human Rights, after mounting pressure that included a Sept. 9 protest by roughly 400 asylum seekers — mostly Ethiopian and Eritrean — outside the Gqeberha office.
Capacity remains a live concern: Gqeberha has only three reception officers processing about 15 applications a day, and advocates warn the reopened doors will test a system already drowning in paper.
