The emphasis in South Africa's immigration policy should be management rather than combating or control, Home Affairs Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba said yesterday.

The emphasis in South Africa's immigration policy should be management rather than combating or control, Home Affairs Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba said yesterday.

Speaking at an Institute for Security Studies seminar, Gigaba said the tide of migration could not be stemmed.

"The worst thing is to become conservative and Draconian as this would encourage irregular migration and make migration management unworkable and unsustainable."

He expressed scepticism over deportations, calling it an "expensive but futile" exercise, but accepted that border management needed to be improved.

He repeated statements by Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula that the country needed to provide a "special dispensation" for economic migrants from the Southern African Development Community.

South Africa had not done enough to move beyond slogans of the "rainbow nation" and "being African", Jody Kollapen, chairman of the Human Rights Commission, said. - Sapa