Latest news with #ImmigrationAct
The Citizen
15 minutes ago
- The Citizen
Intelligence-driven police operation secures arrests
A 25-year-old suspect, said to be part of a group terrorising the Richards Bay community, was arrested for a house break-in on Friday. The arrest was made by the Richards Bay Proactive Team in an intelligence-driven operation in Mzingazi. ALSO READ: 3 kidnapping, murder suspects nabbed in Ndumo King Cetshwayo Cluster police spokesperson Captain Siyanda Shangase said the suspect's friends are still at large. 'He was also charged with possession of an illegal firearm and 15 live rounds of ammunition. His girlfriend was arrested for possession of suspected stolen property. 'The police are working around the clock following information on the whereabouts of the other suspects,' said Shangase. Both suspects are expected to appear in the Richards Bay Magistrate's Court this week. In a separate incident, Shangase said the same team executed a stop-and-search on the R102 in KwaDlangezwa. 'Eight suspects were issued with J534 fines for contravention of the National Road Traffic Act. 'Three foreign nationals were arrested for contravention of the Immigration Act,' he said, adding that they would appear in the Mtunzini Magistrate's Court. Don't have the ZO app? Download it to your Android or Apple device here: HAVE YOUR SAY Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter. For news straight to your phone invite us: WhatsApp – 060 784 2695 Instagram – zululand_observer At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
Bangkok Post
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Bangkok Post
Refugees in policy limbo
Time is running out. In less than two weeks, over 80,000 refugees on the Thai–Myanmar border will be left without food, health care, or protection. With US aid permanently cut, Thailand can no longer look away. The government must act before this humanitarian crisis spins out of control. These refugees, mostly ethnic Karen minorities fleeing war and persecution in Myanmar, have lived in limbo for over 40 years. Many were born in the camps, their hopes for resettlement long dashed, with nowhere else to go. The humanitarian crisis began with US President Donald Trump's executive order freezing all foreign aid for a 90-day review on Jan 20, immediately followed by a stop-work order for US-funded NGOs, including those serving nine refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. Now, the cuts have become permanent. Even with US assistance, food and medicine were barely enough. Without it, how long can people endure hunger, illness, and despair? The Thai government must act before this desperate situation turns into a disaster. When the National Security Council meets this Thursday, it must go beyond temporary relief. A dignified and realistic solution is to allow them to work. With income, they can stand on their own feet, thus significantly reducing the burden on the government. To be fair, the government acted swiftly by providing emergency health care. But food aid is drying up. Other donors offer only minimal support. Without proper food or income, families face starvation or breaking the law by slipping out of the camps to find work. Let's be clear: these camps are no longer shelters. They are holding pens. People are locked in, barred from working or leaving. Thai is not even taught in the camps, making communication harder. Yet many are skilled and ready to contribute. Thailand has done better before. The country has hosted refugees from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, even China and Nepal. When repatriation proved impossible, Thailand gave them "displaced person" status with legal IDs, the right to work, and the chance to live with dignity. Reclassifying these refugees as migrant workers would be a mistake. That status limits them to manual labour, tight controls, and nearly no chance of changing jobs. The migrant worker label is neither fair nor productive. After all, refugees didn't migrate to find jobs, they were running away from a civil war. Their situation is different and deserves a different solution. One proposed solution is to classify them as "displaced persons from Myanmar". This is possible under the Immigration Act, allowing legal stay and work rights in jobs not reserved for Thai nationals. This term enables security agencies to monitor and manage the process properly. Many of these refugees are Karen, sharing cultural ties with Thai-Karen communities. Integration, especially in border areas, would not be difficult. Furthermore, only about 30,000 of these refugees are of working age. The labour market will have no problems absorbing the extra manpower. Without intervention, the risks are clear: illegal work, trafficking, and an increase in crime. These problems can be prevented if the government acts now. No one is asking the government to feed 80,000 mouths forever. People want the chance to stand on their own two feet. Give them that chance before it's too late.
Daily Maverick
15 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Civil society groups threaten court action over US deportations of criminals to Eswatini
The NGOs called on the Eswatini government to clarify the legal and factual basis on which the five individuals were accepted into Eswatini and to commit to not accepting inmates from third countries. Civil society groups in Eswatini and South Africa have threatened legal action against the Swazi government for accepting five hardened third-country criminals from the US. And Eswatini's Prime Minister Russell Dlamini has said his country is open to receiving more deportees if requested to do so by the US and if Eswatini has the capacity. The Swaziland Litigation Centre, the Swaziland Rural Women's Assembly and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre based in Johannesburg have issued a statement in which they threatened legal action if the Eswatini government did not back off from the deportee deal with the US. The US Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said last week that the deportees, from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen, had criminal records which included convictions for murder, homicide and child rape. They were 'so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back', she added. The Eswatini government confirmed that the men had arrived and had been detained. It claimed they presented no threat to Swazi people. But the three civil society organisations said the arrival of the men raised many questions — especially in a country where correctional centres were overcrowded, the government was grappling with a range of crises, including a shortage of essential medicines, 'and where there have been consistent calls for a democratic, open and transparent government'. They asked whether the convicts had been sent to Eswatini to serve out the remainder of their prison sentences or whether these sentences had already been served, and they left the US under removal orders. They questioned whether the men had been informed that they were going to be removed to Eswatini, and whether they had access to consular services from their countries, an automatic right of every person detained in a foreign country. 'Who in Eswatini authorised the country's acceptance of these individuals, and on what legal basis did they do so? Are they detained under a detention warrant or a certificate of detention as per the Immigration Act? Any other basis of detention would be contrary to the Correctional Services Act No. 13 of 2017.' The NGOs asked whether the convicts would remain in Eswatini until the end of their sentences, and if not, how long they would remain in the country. 'What we do know points to the illegality of the detention in Eswatini and the unlawfulness of their removal from the United States,' the three NGOs said, because Swazi law only allowed for two scenarios for the detention of convicts. One was the transfer of a Swazi citizen convicted in a foreign state to serve their sentence in Eswatini. The second was the transfer of a foreign citizen convicted by a Swazi court to serve their sentence in their own country. They noted that Swazi law stipulated that a citizen of Eswatini must consent voluntarily and in writing to be transferred from a foreign country to serve their sentence in Eswatini. They said Eswatini's Immigration Act deemed any person convicted of murder in any country an undesirable immigrant. The government could grant such a person a temporary stay in exceptional circumstances, but there had been no indication of how long they would be detained in Eswatini. They noted that the Eswatini government had claimed the convicts would be returned to their countries of origin — yet the US had said it was sending them to Eswatini because their countries of origin did not want them back. Degrading treatment The NGOs said the law required that 'someone who is to be removed to a third country should be given notice and opportunity to claim that such removal could expose them to torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. 'Removing people who had already served their sentences to be detained in a third country would amount to cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment and a violation of their right to due process. From a purely practical angle, it is unlikely that the individuals were able to exercise their due process rights given the haste with which they were sent to Eswatini. 'The United States has domesticated the Convention Against Torture, which means that they cannot send them to a country where people might be tortured. In the United States' 2024 report on Human Rights Practices in Eswatini, it noted the prisons were overcrowded, constituting inhumane treatment, and that there were reports of torture in prisons.' The NGOs called on the Eswatini government to clarify the legal and factual basis on which the five individuals were accepted into Eswatini and to commit to not accepting inmates from third countries. They called on the consulates of the countries where the five individuals are citizens to urgently arrange for consular services to ensure that they obtain legal representation. They called on the Eswatini Commission on Human Rights and Public Administration, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the International Committee of the Red Cross in Pretoria and other relevant international bodies to visit the five individuals to establish the facts surrounding their detention and their detention conditions. Eswatini's acting government spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli, told Daily Maverick, 'We are not aware of the threats to block the transfer of deportees, but only about safety concerns, which we have adequately addressed.' Responding to speculation in Eswatini that Prime Minister Dlamini had announced that his country would be receiving more deportees from the US, Mdluli said: 'He didn't say we would be receiving more, but the question was whether Eswatini would accept more deportees if the US were to advance a similar request in future, to which the PM said we would be open to receiving more, depending on capacity.' Mdluli also denied speculation in Eswatini that the US had paid Eswatini $5.1-million to accept deportees. 'No, we are not paid anything by the US. The US government, however, caters for the welfare of the deportees, including repatriation costs.' DM
Irish Examiner
18 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Hospital arrangements made for 'flagrantly unwell' man accused of St Patrick's Day disturbance in Cork
A 36-year-old man who was described as 'flagrantly unwell' had his case adjourned again on Monday for arrangements to be made for his admission for hospital treatment. The case against Mbuku Desire who was living at an apartment at Clonliffe Road, Dublin, came to light arising out of a report of him causing a disturbance at Little Island on St Patrick's Day. On the application of Sergeant Gearóid Davis, Judge Mary Dorgan remanded the defendant in custody with consent to bail to July 31 for update in relation to the defendant's treatment and for an updated psychiatric report. It was previously alleged that gardaí were attempting to arrest a man on the busy platform of Little Island's railway station on March 17 when he ran through the crowd to get away from them. Garda Mary Gallagher charged 36-year-old Mbuku Desire with engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace. Garda Gallagher said the alleged incident occurred at Little Island train station at Kilcoolishal, Glounthaune, County Cork, on St Patrick's Day. It was alleged that he ran along the railway platform at a time when it was busy with a lot of families out for the parades and celebrations. As well as the public order charge the defendant was charged under the Immigration Act with failing to produce on demand to a member of An Garda Síochána a valid passport or other equivalent document establishing his identity and nationality. Shane Collins-Daly, solicitor, said the defendant is a national of the Republic of Congo. Advanced nurse practitioner from the forensic psychiatric team at Clover Hill Prison, Philip Hickey, testified last month in relation to therapeutic bail when a person is stuck in the prison system with a mental disorder. The nature of such bail is that a person is brought by prison staff to a centre approved under the Mental Health Act as soon as a bed becomes available and is then returned by prison staff to prison following his treatment. In the present case, the availability of a bed is still awaited.
IOL News
a day ago
- IOL News
Gauteng police sweep: 92 arrests, dozens of stolen cars recovered
Rapid response police units in Gauteng brought down 92 suspects in a recent week-long crackdown, recovering significant stolen property and seizing illegal drugs and weapons. Criminals in Gauteng had a tough week. From Friday, July 11 to Thursday, July 17, 2025, the province's rapid response police units hit hard, arresting 92 suspects, getting 43 stolen cars back, and seizing five firearms. It's all part of a major push to keep Gauteng safer. These results stemmed from various concentrated operations across the province, including vehicle checkpoints, secured escorts, and intensive patrols. These efforts led to 49 arrests for a wide range of serious crimes. These offenses include assault (common and grievous bodily harm), possession of suspected stolen property, possession of gold-bearing material, business robbery, malicious damage to property, driving under the influence of alcohol, contravention of the Immigration Act, carjacking, bribery, drinking in public, contravention of a protection order, crimen injuria, perjury, attempted murder, kidnapping, possession of housebreaking equipment, and theft. Among the recovered items were 43 hijacked and stolen motor vehicles, leading to the arrest of 10 suspects found in possession of these vehicles. Additionally, five unlicensed firearms were seized, resulting in four arrests. Police also made 29 arrests related to drug offenses, including possession and dealing. Various illicit substances were confiscated during these incidents, such as heroin, dagga, crystal methamphetamine, cocaine, and mandrax. Investigations into these cases are ongoing. These operations underscore the police's commitment to increased visibility and relentless efforts in fighting crime across Gauteng.
