Beyond the transient protections of the Children’s Act: contestations on citizenship and belonging for foreigners with refugee claims in South Africa

Refugees and asylum seekers now find themselves ever more confronted with restrictive systems that limit their living potentials. For most refugees and asylum seekers, belonging to a national polity where citizenship is performed through the everyday ability to make requisite demands from the responsible government, is the ultimate goal. Notwithstanding the inequitable distribution of civil, political, socio-economic, and other rights; most refugees still aspire for some utopian semblance of social inclusion/belonging and recognition. Threats to such utopian aspirations have however been detailed in the recent debates on biological citizenship, the emerging paternity centred approaches to citizenship in immigration, and the broader implications of this on refugee rights and self-determination. In contributing to this debate, this chapter explores the South African immigration system’s handling of accompanied and unaccompanied foreign minors with asylum claims, as well as the efficacy of the available solutions in ensuring such populations long-term legibility to social protection and socio-economic rights.