South Africa has processed 53,499 foreign nationals for deportation or voluntary repatriation since launching a “migration management” campaign five weeks ago, Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi announced on Sunday. The figure, more than double the number of removals recorded before anti-immigrant protests on 30 June, is dominated by citizens of Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. The government is establishing a second temporary deportation centre to accelerate returns, while President Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged public concerns over immigration but condemned vigilante attacks. The UN has cautioned against using migrants as scapegoats for the country’s socioeconomic challenges, as anti-migrant activists threaten weekly protests and set an unofficial deadline for all undocumented foreigners to leave.

In Madrid, the government has declined to disclose how many of the 1.2 million applicants in its recent regularisation programme have registered as unemployed, even as social security affiliation data shows 160,000 new contributors. Analysts at the Funcas think-tank estimate that up to 20,000 newly regularised migrants have signed on with the public employment service, based on a seasonally adjusted rise of 16,000 foreign jobless in May and June alone—a period that normally sees a monthly decline of around 1,000. The Labour Ministry has described any effect on registered unemployment as “truly insignificant, not even reaching 1%,” but Funcas senior analyst María Jesús Fernández notes that the deviation from historical trends points to a direct link with the regularisation process.

Viewed from Washington, the US is expanding its use of third-country deportation agreements. Immigration lawyers report that an Iranian woman is among a group of migrants being transferred to the Central African Republic, while two other Iranian women obtained temporary judicial orders halting their removal. All three had previously been granted protection against return to Iran on grounds of likely political or religious persecution. Ali Rahnama, head of the Iranian-American Legal Defense Fund, said nationals of Afghanistan, Jordan, Armenia, Turkey, and Georgia are also among those being sent to CAR, a country that has cooperated with US removal deals. Rahnama expressed concern over the transfer of an Iranian asylum seeker to a state where Russia, a close security partner of Tehran, wields significant influence.

These parallel developments illustrate how governments in different regions are tightening migration enforcement while managing domestic political pressures and labour market realities. In South Africa, the deportation drive follows weeks of violence and looting targeting foreigners, with authorities warning against unauthorised searches. In Spain, the regularisation programme has surfaced previously informal employment but left questions over the fiscal cost of new jobless claims unanswered. In the US, the legality of sending protected individuals to third countries is under judicial review. South Africa’s deportations are set to continue, Spain’s labour ministry has yet to commit to publishing the unemployment data, and the US court will examine whether the transfers to CAR circumvent existing legal protections.