FACT CHECK: Does SA really have 15 million illegal migrants? By senior researcher Cayley Clifford In March 2021, the hashtag #15MillionIllegalMigrants appeared on Twitter, with claims that there were 15 million illegal migrants in South Africa. One tweet shows a screenshot of a document that claims South Africa has “just over 15 million unregistered or undocumented people”. Another has a screenshot of a November 2020 tweet by Herman Mashaba, former mayor of Johannesburg, in which he claimed there were 15 million “undocumented foreigners” in South Africa. Africa Check fact checked Mashaba’s tweet, and found no evidence for the 15 million figure. Three months later, there’s still no evidence.