Undocumented Africans didn't cause our unemployment crisis - Mbeki on Xenophobia

Thabo Mbeki has pushed back against anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa. He argued at the Thabo Mbeki Foundation and AUDA-NEPAD Business Breakfast that undocumented African migrants are not responsible for South Africa's unemployment crisis. He said, "The levels of high unemployment in this country are not due. They are not due to undocumented Africans. They are not."

Mbeki acknowledged that South Africa faces challenges, including high unemployment and crime levels, but rejected blaming undocumented African migrants. He stated that South Africa's economic trajectory and declining growth rates were well documented and had nothing to do with immigration. He said South Africa achieved growth rates reaching 6% from 1994 to 2008, but from 2009, it went in the opposite direction, which he said "isn't caused by undocumented immigrants." Nearly 300 Ghanaians returned home this week following anti-immigrant protests.

Mbeki predicted that Africans from across the continent would continue coming to South Africa regardless of efforts to stop them. He urged South Africans to find practical ways to deal with migration rather than treating migrants as the source of the country's problems. He warned that many citizens are "busy chasing after ghosts" while ignoring the real issues affecting the economy.