Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

― Emma Lazarus

How many more times are the Courts going to order the Department of Home Affairs to admit yet another “undesirable” before the Department reads the writing on the wall and ensures steps are taken to retract or amend its Directive 9 of 2014 that punishes the innocent for the ‘sins’ of the Department by excluding so-called “undesirables”?

The Department has to be alive to the reality that the implications of exclusion could get far worse in terms of possible, but entirely foreseeable, financial prejudice to some of the undesirables or of those affected (such as employers) resulting in potentially huge damages actions.