Their harsh words recently seem to prove this. The announcement that theyre going to be deporting people next year is one that gives them the opportunity to deport very large numbers of people, says Braam Hanekom, the founder of Cape Town-based refugee rights group People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression, and Poverty.

New immigration legislation says only Zimbabwean migrants who the South African authorities establish are working or studying or who own businesses in South Africa, who apply for revised residence permits by December 31 and are granted the documents, can remain in the country legally.

We expect everyone, whether you are a foreigner or a South African, to abide by our laws. And anyone who flouts the law will have to face the consequences, said Jackie McKay, chief of immigration and one of the Home Affairs officials driving the states Zimbabwean Regularisation Project.

If you are in the provinces you are deported through the point of entry nearest to your province. If you are arrested elsewhere you will be taken to our holding centre at Lindela and, from there, you will be transported back to Zimbabwe, he explained.

Until now, South Africa has allowed illegal Zimbabweans to remain in the country under a special dispensation. This policy widely praised by international human rights advocates took into account the political and economic instability in Zimbabwe. But the revised regulations have reversed this policy.

Into the lions den

The latest United Nations Refugee Agency Global Report says South Africa continues to receive the largest number of asylum applications in the world, with 222,000 applications submitted in 2009 alone.

According to South Africas main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, 300 to 400 Zimbabweans arrive in South Africa every day. The International Organisation for Migration estimates there are up to two million illegal Zimbabwean immigrants in the country.

Gabriel Shumba, a lawyer and director of the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, says this figures far too conservative. Id say its about double that.

Shumba is convinced this will be a human rights and humanitarian

catastropheSome do not even have homes or jobs to go back to.

The lawyer says other Zimbabweans who dont qualify for the new residence documents fled to South Africa after suffering political persecution.

Deporting them, Braam Hanekom maintains, will be their death sentence.

Shumba agrees: It will be like throwing them into the lions den because they hold political opinions that are at variance with Zanu (PF) and these people will be targeted myself, for example.

If violence mars another Zimbabwean election, says Shumba, the South African authorities should suspend immigration reforms for Zimbabweans, and should exercise leniency in the interests of basic human rights.

Military operations

Other human rights monitors say South Africas immigration problem may sort itself out when Zimbabwe is stable and safe again.

McKay says South Africa must protect its interests: Anywhere you go in the world, deportation is a way of controlling illegal immigration. That said, this is a documentation process, not a deportation process, he says.

Tara Polzer, of Wits Universitys Forced Migration Studies Programme, says

South Africas stricter policy regarding Zimbabweans will have several very negative effects on some migrants.

That does include the potential for quite a few people being arrested and deported without really having had the chance of duly getting into the systems that are being offered, just because of bureaucratic issues, because of timing issues, she explains.

Many Zimbabweans say if theyre deported, theyll return to South Africa illegally as soon as possible. McKay says his government will respond by stepping up military operations on the border.