Factory Workers March for Foreigners To Stay: “We Need Foreigners To Eat”

SOUTH AFRICA– Factory workers in South Africa took to the streets to demand that foreign nationals employed at factories should not be fired. They reasoned that the loss of foreign nationals as employees could severely impact production.

The State News posted a video of the protest on 13 June 2026 on its @THESTATENEWSS X account. President Cyril Ramaphosa recently warned employers that they would face severe fines if found to have employed undocumented foreign nationals.

Local speaks up about immigration issues

Speaking in the video, one of the locals who joined the protest said that if foreign nationals leave the country, there would be unemployment. She alleged that foreign nationals are machinists in the factories and added that there are no local machinists.

Another local woman said that South Africans do not know how to cut garments. The woman called on President Cyril Ramaphosa, who established an Inter-Ministerial Migration Committee, not to chase foreign nationals away.

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“We're going to be poor. We're going to be hungry. We need foreigners,” she cried.

A third woman said that if there are no foreigners, they would not get jobs because they rely on them to get jobs.

View the video on X here:

Shepherd Bushiri to help Malawians repatriate

In a related article, Briefly News reported that fugitive Shepherd Bushiri has stepped in after the Malawian government called for assistance in repatriating at least 10,000 of its citizens from South Africa. Bushiri announced that he donated buses for the government to use to repatriate Malawians.

Source: Briefly News