A Dutch man who has been battling with the Department of Home Affairs to get SA citizenship for his family faces deportation.
|||Cape Town - A Dutch father who has been in a 17-year battle with the Department of Home Affairs to get South African citizenship for himself, his wife and his son, has been ordered to leave the country by Sunday.
Thijs van Hillegondsberg, 56, was served with an “Order to illegal foreigner to depart from republic” by an immigration officer at his Strand home on July 18. The order states that Van Hillegondsberg has to leave the country by August 4 and should he fail to do so, he will be “arrested and detained” until deportation.
Van Hillegondsberg, his wife Patricia Poelmann, 54, and their son Ludo, then three years old, moved from the Netherlands to South Africa in 1996. The couple adopted South African children, Thembisa Masisa, 18, and Johan Oktober, 16, in 2001.
Van Hillegondsberg has vowed not to leave the country.
“It’s better to go to prison than leave, because once I leave I won’t be able to come back to my family… it’s not like I can just pack a suitcase and leave my wife and children.
This thing has been dragging on for too long. It got out of hand so quickly, it’s now hard to imagine how it started.”
He alleges that by law they have been eligible for South African citizenship since 2001 when they became the legal adoptive parents of South African children by order of a high court judge.
The family have repeatedly applied for work, temporary residence and study permits, which have been extended annually since 1999. Ludo, 21, is studying medicine at Stellenbosch University, on a study permit.
The family first complained to the Office of the Public Protector in 2001 after they were repatriated to the Netherlands in 1999. They stayed in their native country for two months before returning to South Africa.
Last year, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela intervened.
Through a detailed report - “Unconscionable Delay” - presented in Parliament last April, Madonsela found that Home Affairs had botched the family’s application for permanent residency and recommended that the department grant the family permanent resident status by an exemption application. Backed by Mandonsela’s report Van Hillegondsberg applied for exemption last November, but Home Affairs has rejected his application.
Home Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said on Sunday the department had a constitutional mandate to enforce immigration laws. “As far as I know Van Hillegondsberg is in the country illegally.”
nontando.mposo@inl.co.za
Cape Argus