Historically Botswana citizens used to flock to South Africa as laborers mostly in the mines. However, since the discovery of diamonds in the 1970s, Botswana became a migrant-receiving country instead. In the 1980s and 1990s, Botswana left its doors open to migrants from Africa and elsewhere. While in the 1980s the migrants hosted by Botswana had been mostly from South Africa, where they were fleeing the excesses of the then apartheid regime, in the years that followed, the vast majority of the migrants were Zimbabweans fleeing economic meltdown and political turmoil. The country has also hosted scores of migrants from other countries, including Angola and Somalia. The migrants who include refugees and asylum seekers, cross-border traders, visitors, tourists as well as both skilled and unskilled job-seekers have, over the years, settled in virtually every corner of the country. The buoyancy of the country’s economy has been instrumental in attracting large numbers of people arriving in the country. A fair proportion of them had varied skills desperately needed for the development of the country. While some of the migrants, upon crossing the border into Botswana take steps to get documented, others remain undocumented. To date, while the country has, on the whole, acquitted itself relatively well in regard to hosting the migrants, some migrants residing in Botswana, have grappled with a number of challenges. The purpose of the paper is to consider how Botswana has fared in regard to hosting migrants, particularly (undocumented) displaced persons, asylum seekers, and refugees in the 50-year period since the attainment of Independence in 1966.

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