Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba will seek a meeting with the mayor of the City of Johannesburg Herman Mashaba about his views on foreign nationals‚ the department said on Monday.

“Minister Gigaba views the comments as unfortunate and will brief the mayor on government’s policy and interventions in relation to the management of international migration. The minister has repeatedly called on all leaders irrespective of their political allegiance to desist from making statements that could influence the public to adopt xenophobic attitudes‚” the statement read.

Last week‚ in his 100th day in office‚ Mashaba called on illegal immigrants to leave his city‚ telling a media conference that they got here criminally and should be treated as such.

Mashaba said he would rope in human rights lawyers to assist him and that he had spoken to respective embassies‚ who agreed to help with the process.

 “You see‚ for me‚ when I call these criminals ‘criminals’‚ I want them to understand that they are criminals‚” Mashaba said.

“They are holding our country to ransom and I am going to be the last South African to allow it.”

Mashaba said he knew he had constraints as local government because the national government had opened borders to criminals‚ but the DA would change all that when it takes over national government in 2019.

“But in the meantime I have already started engaging embassies in our country for them to know their residents in our city are here criminally‚” Mashaba said.

But Gigaba wants to get to the bottom of the views expressed by the mayor of the country’s economic hub.

“All of us have the responsibility to act in a manner that does not incite any hatred towards other fellow human beings irrespective of where they come from. I will seek a meeting with the Mayor precisely to brief him on a number of interventions that government has implemented in this regard‚” said Gigaba.