17/04/2026
Publication: CWAO
Author: CWAO Press Team
The CWAO is in full support of the Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia march on 18 April 2026
For interviews: Sydney Moshoaliba, CWAO Researcher on 072 509 3587
The CWAO is in full support of the Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia march on 18 April 2026 from 9am until 1pm in commemoration of Freedom Month.
We will be marching through the streets of Johannesburg ending at Constitutional Hill, to raise our collective voices against xenophobia and scapegoating and to highlight the negative impacts of xenophobia on our communities, cities and country as a whole.
CWAO’s philosophy is that so-called “foreigners” are not the cause of our problems - all the Black working class are facing the same problems. The real enemies are Capitalism and its supporters.
Many sectors like mining grew on migrant labour over generations. Migrant workers also play an important role in agriculture. During Apartheid, white capitalists used discrimination and oppression to exploit Black workers and make huge profits from their labour, both from South Africa and other countries. Bantustans and pass laws treated Black South Africans as foreigners, restricting where they could live. African borders were invented by European colonial powers during the Berlin Conference of 1884, with no legitimate basis beyond colonialism and oppression.
Today, xenophobia blames working class migrants for problems caused by racial capitalism, allowing the government and its capitalist allies to avoid responsibility for failing to deliver services, corruption, lack of political will, criminalisation of poverty, economic collapse and unemployment.
Divisions between “legal” and “illegal” migrants, “skilled” and “unskilled” workers, and “foreign” and “local” workers weaken the working class and serve exploitative bosses. Immigration policy changes form part of Operation Vulindlela, which aims to open the economy to private sector control. This allows corporations to shape policy, bring in migrant workers on temporary contracts, and reduce their rights, while closing borders to ordinary people.
The result is a broad removal of rights: migrants’ rights, workers’ rights, and access to basic services like water and electricity, which are increasingly privatised and unaffordable.
The White Paper on Citizenship and Immigration proposes a point system to replace rights based on years in the country, benefiting big companies while taking away rights from working class migrants. Although it claims to prioritise those who “contribute to the economy,” it limits this to entrepreneurs, skilled professionals, and investors, ignoring that the economy is built on the labour of all workers.
We demand an end to xenophobia and rights for all workers. No one is illegal! Open borders for all! We will mobilise and unite and fight against these proposed changes to the law. CWAO stands for the unity of all workers and the working class. United we are strong.
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For interviews please call Sydney Moshoaliba, CWAO Researcher on 072 509 3587