In 1998, when South Africa's refugee framework was in its infancy, asylum seeker applications in the country were a barely noticeable phenomenon. Department of Home Affairs records show that in total 11 135 applications were made across the country that year – a matter of little significance in a country with a population of tens of millions. By 2009, the picture was very different. Applications had grown to an alarming 223 324 and overwhelmed the country's refugee reception offices. But, as with most phenomena related to migration, the crisis was not permanent. Over the following years the number of applicants dropped steadily, never to reverse. By 2018, South Africa, a country with a population of almost 60 million people, received only 18 354 asylum applications, hardly a deluge of catastrophic proportion.

Trends in Somali migration have been slightly different. Somali asylum applications to South Africa peaked in 2011. According to UNHCR data, 9 986 Somali nationals applied for asylum in the country that year. Their arrival alarmed political leaders. This was the year that Helen Zille, in her capacity as premier of the Western Cape, reportedly bemoaned the high numbers of Somalis arriving in the city every week. She warned that foreign retailers threatened local business interests. These new arrivals, she declared, opened spaza shops that drove South Africans out of business. Furthermore, foreign retailers were economic migrants competing over scarce resources; they were not genuine refugees. This claim did not correspond with UNHCR records. Somalis – who made up the large majority of foreign township traders in the city – had an 84.47 per cent refugee recognition rate in the country that year. Zille pressed on, complaining that foreign-run businesses paid negligible amounts of tax and did not use banks. Laws governing migration, she argued, needed to change.

The following month, October, national police commissioner Bheki Cele demonstrated more or less the same alarm at a breakfast meeting of police officers in Khayelitsha: ‘Our people have been economically displaced,’ a media article quotes him as saying. ‘All these spaza shops are not run by locals.’ While he was speaking, an audience member shouted: ‘They’re not banking!’ To which Cele replied, ‘One has to ask, what happens to the money?’ The situation, in his view, was untenable and needed addressing. ‘One day, our people will revolt,’ he said, ‘and we’ve appealed to DTI [Department of Trade and Industry] to do something about it.’