Stepping up efforts to handle illegal immigrants

Botswana has unveiled plans to build an additional centre to house the growing numbers of illegal immigrants crossing into the country, mainly from neighbouring Zimbabwe. The new centre, expected to be situated in Molepolole, a village 60 km west of the capital, Gaborone, is meant to ease the pressure on a similar facility in Francistown, which is already stretched to capacity. Thousands of Zimbabweans have been flocking to Botswana since 2000, when President Robert Mugabe's government embarked on the controversial land reform programme that has compounded its economic problems. Police commissioner Edwin Batshu was quoted recently in the Botswana Guardian newspaper as saying that, unlike the Francistown shelter, which serves as a holding station for illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, the new centre would receive illegal immigrants who had been given custodial sentences by the country's courts. "People will no longer have the luxury of being deported across the border, only for them to resurface shortly thereafter, as has been the case over the years," Batshu said. Tension between the two countries has been simmering in recent years as increasing numbers of Zimbabweans entered Botswana, both legally and illegally, in a bid to escape the economic crisis at home. Last year Botswana's immigration authorities complained that deporting an estimated 2,500 Zimbabweans each month had become a drain on the country's resources: in November and December 2004, repatriating illegal immigrants, mainly back to Zimbabwe, had cost the country 169,000 Pula (US $33,800). The authorities recently moved to amend the Immigration Act of 2003, which will see stiffer fines - between P300 ($60) and P4,000 ($800) - and sentences imposed on those entering the country illegally. "The original act was lenient, and was encouraging aliens to overstay in the country," the principal immigration officer, Jimmy Kabelo, told IRIN. Batshu pointed out that those convicted of contravening immigration laws would be kept at the new centre for up to five months before being deported to their home countries. According to the immigration officials, most Zimbabweans enter Botswana legally, using valid visas obtained at the two countries' common border posts, but when their visas expire, they evade immigration officials and the police, and remain in the country. Batshu said the police, assisted by the army, were expected to intensify patrols along the common borders to effectively deal with the problem of illegal immigrants, and the government was speeding up construction of the controversial 500 km electric fence between the two countries, which would be patrolled by the security forces.