Reports tabled in Parliament in April indicated that the government is preparing legislation to transfer the responsibility for enforcement of 'influx control' laws from the Department of Co-operation and Development, under which the administration boards operate, to the Department of Internal Affairs.
Evidence given to the Select Committee on the Constitution which is examining the Orderly Movement and Settlement of Black Persons Bill and the proposed Black Communities Development Bill, revealed the government's intention of using the immigration laws instead of the pass laws to prosecute Africans staying outside the so-called 'independent' bantustans. Africans born in these bantustans would thus be classified as foreigners, so that when all bantustans became 'independent' the remainder of the country would be predominantly 'white'. In addition, the draft Orderly Movement and Settlement of Black Persons Bill contains provisions for the creation of passport control officers to enforce the Admission of Persons to the Republic Regulation Act 'with respect to a black person'. These developments recall the events of August 1981, when 2,000 'squatters' at Nyanga in the Cape were deported to the Transkei bantustan as illegal immigrants (CT 16.4.83; ST (Jbg) 17.4.83; FM 15/22.4.83).
