By 7 a.m., lines of customers line the block outside shops on the main shopping strip in Musina, a bustling South African border town where thousands of people arrive daily from neighboring Zimbabwe to buy food, clothing and other staples. need that is difficult to return Home.
A few miles away, at the border, trucks bearing the stamp of South Africa’s fledgling border patrol inspect the wire fence, trying to catch people crossing illegally — brave bandits, crocodiles and the rushing Limpopo River. The border force represents an attempt by the government, months before crucial national elections, to respond to popular demand and crack down on migrants sneaking into the country.
Surrounded by farms and a copper mine, Musina is where the government’s muscular immigration policy collides with a hard reality that many South Africans are loathe to admit: that even people crossing the border illegally can be good for the country. country.
Without them, “Musina will become a big ghost town,” said Jean-Pierre Vivier, a South African who, with his family, runs a butcher’s shop that relies on immigrant customers.
Like politicians in the United States, Europe and elsewhere who score points by promising hard borders and mass deportations, their South African counterparts are unleashing a sweeping crackdown on foreigners to appeal to voters, playing on similar, often unfounded fears that immigrants fuel the crime and steal jobs.
South Africa has its own struggles with poverty and extreme inequality, but it is wealthy compared to some of its neighbors, making it a tempting destination for migrants from Africa and beyond.
Last month, South Africa’s government proposed the most radical overhaul of its immigration laws since it became a republic in 1994, aimed at significantly limiting the entry of foreigners. In October, President Cyril Ramaphosa officially launched the new border patrol agency to coordinate police, military and economic operations, saying the rise in undocumented immigration had “exacerbated many of the country’s social and economic problems.”
Earlier this month, in a bid to show how tough the new border agency was, its chief said it had stopped 443 Zimbabwean children traveling on 42 buses without their parents from being “trafficked” into South Africa at the border post near in Musina.
Zimbabwean officials quickly dismissed the claim as imaginary, saying they had no record of South African authorities handing over so many children. Zimbabweans living in South Africa said that even if the buses of children had been stopped, they were not being trafficked but coming to South Africa to visit their parents for the holidays, a standard practice.
“Everything is going backwards, we’re going to elections,” said Yona Zhoya, a native Zimbabwean who lives in South Africa and works with migrants. “As soon as you say, ‘Down with the foreigners,’ then you get mileage or you get their votes.”
As violence against migrants has flared in parts of South Africa, Mr Zhoya said many migrants were so scared they were sending valuables back to their homelands, worried their homes might be attacked.
A research showed that last year, 69 percent of South Africans believed that immigrants increased crime.
But in Musina, locals are happy to look the other way when Zimbabweans cross the Limpopo, sneak through holes in the border fence or grease the palm of a guard.
Business owners in Musina do not feel they are competing with foreign migrants as they might in some of South Africa’s big cities, said Moses Matshiva, who owns a building that houses a tavern, pharmacy and hookah bar in Nancefield, a town near Musina.
“We here are not complaining because they come and buy and come back,” he said.
Shopkeepers cater to their cross-border customers by adjusting their opening hours to accommodate overnight travelers and selling bulk items such as trays of canned goods, buckets of cookies and cases of energy drinks.
Mr Vivier’s butcher shop on Musina’s main road has 32 employees who produce 70 tonnes of sausages every month for resale across the border. His family members have also become middlemen for more affluent buyers, securing boxes of rare items like Pringles, Oreos and, in one case, 130 pounds of chocolates to be shipped to the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
As in much of the world, immigrants in South Africa tend to be young, driven and entrepreneurial, adding much more to the economy than competing for jobs, experts say.
A study by the World Bank found that a migrant worker typically produces two jobs for South Africans. Another from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that immigrants contribute 9 percent of South Africa’s gross domestic product.
Immigration has indelibly changed Mousina, once a sleepy town. South African shop owners rent their storefronts to entrepreneurs from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Somalia, who have moved to Musina to take advantage of mass market trends. A Chinese-owned outlet is one of the biggest businesses in town, selling everything from furniture to building materials.
Zimbabwean buyers typically resell the goods back home — some in their own stores.
Almost all of Musina’s economy depends on cross-border markets. And there is money to be made at every step of the process, legally and illegally.
Next to the border bridge and checkpoint, food vendors live and work from shacks set up by the road. The surrounding area resembles a car dealership, with rows and rows of Japanese-made cars awaiting export to other African countries.
A mall parking lot is set up by packers, usually men, who charge about $20 to pack and wrap items in a way that can avoid border inspection.
Maxwell Ntuli, wearing a yellow vest, oversees the scene, guarding against robbers preying on cross-border customers carrying large wads of cash.
He worked as a taxi driver for years, but now he makes more money than that. Amidst the chaos, Mr Ntuli, a South African, loudly criticizes the packers, many of whom are Zimbabweans living illegally in South Africa.
As shoppers return to the border by noon, they are greeted by another set of middlemen in this transnational economy.
To avoid paying high import duties or bribes, buyers hire porters to carry their goods across borders, often in bulging backpacks. Sometimes, several porters divide the inventory among themselves and declare it as their personal baggage. Other times, they slip through one of the many holes in the fence, not far from the checkpoint where officials stamp passports. The porters duck behind trees and hide from the soldiers camped in plain view, then dive back to South Africa to pick up more cargo.
Two porters from Zimbabwe, who identified themselves only as Simba and Justice for fear of arrest, said they were supporting their families in this way. Justice has been a porter for 14 years, while Simba took on the dangerous job in 2018, earning about $5 per truck trip and nearly $30 to guide people across the Limpopo River. Women, seen as a liability when running from soldiers or crocodiles, are charged more.
“If I work hard, I can make four trips a day,” said Simba, speaking through the razor fence on the Zimbabwean side.
“Me, I’m a lazy boy,” Justice said with a laugh. “I only made two trips.”
If caught by border security it will pay them back $50 or three months in jail. Both say they’ve been caught and deported more times than they can remember.
For heavier loads, other porters say they go down to the river where the water is shallow and donkeys carry the goods to Zimbabwe. Across the river, a vehicle waiting in the bush delivers the items to their owners in Zimbabwe.
On a recent afternoon in mid-December, Simba and Justice had just crossed the Limpopo and were approaching the fence to enter South Africa when they saw a vehicle approaching. A South African government truck drove by, carrying a new roll of razor wire and workers tasked with fixing the fence. The South Africans and Zimbabweans waved to each other and then continued on their separate, deeply intertwined journeys.
Geoffrey Moyo contributed reporting from Harare, Zimbabwe.