By Odwa Mkentane
An Afrikaner family who were granted refugee status in the United States is reportedly unable to return after travelling back to South Africa for healthcare. The family later attempted to re-enter the US but were refused entry, leaving them stranded in South Africa despite having previously been accepted as refugees.
The family had travelled to the United States with 13,000 other South Africans under President Trump’s programme but are now stranded in the country.
Speaking to VOC, immigration lawyer Craig Smith said that returning to the country could contradict the basis on which they applied for refugee protection and could potentially become grounds for exclusion from refugee status.
“Refugee status is based on a person’s inability to remain safely in their country because of persecution, public disturbance or war. In other words, it means a person is saying: ‘I need to leave because it is unsafe for me to remain here, either because I am being persecuted or because of the prevailing circumstances.’
“The issue with refugee status is that a person is effectively saying, ‘I cannot remain in my country of origin.’ In this case, those South Africans who left the country and sought refugee status in the United States were effectively seeking protection outside South Africa,” said Smith.
Smith added that South Africans affected by such a decision could approach the American courts to challenge it. However, that would be an administrative-law matter and could be extremely costly.
“The case would have to be taken through the US legal system, and I believe they would face significant difficulties in successfully challenging the decision. The courts had already expressed concerns about aspects of Trump’s executive order, but in this case, the situation is different because the individuals were granted an opportunity to obtain refugee protection and subsequently returned to the country from which they had claimed they needed protection,” he said.
He concluded that they had effectively been given an opportunity to seek protection in the United States. However, once they voluntarily returned to South Africa, they potentially weakened their position when seeking to re-enter the United States.
Photo: Pixabay
