Freedom House Recommendations for the South African government: • Support and fund civil society outreach to educate at-risk diasporas about their rights and how to recognize and respond to transnational repression. • Train law enforcement and immigration officials on recognizing and responding to potential transnational repression. • • Identify and document transnational repression as a distinct problem and incorporate the risk of transnational repression into refugee status determination officers’ assessment of asylum applications. Consistently apply penalties for transnational repression. Law enforcement should promptly investigate potential incidents and apply domestic criminal law as relevant. • The government should apply diplomatic penalties, including expelling diplomats, condition non-humanitarian foreign aid, and raise the issue in bilateral discussions in response to incidents of transnational repression. • Ensure sufficient funding and personnel to accomplish Asylum Decisions Backlog Elimination Project and to prevent asylum backlogs in the future. • Recognize that xenophobia exacerbates people’s vulnerability to transnational repression and review its impact on asylum, extradition, and deportation processes. Develop and execute a plan to address xenophobia’s negative impacts. freedomhouse.org 7