Migrants will not be sent out of Israel to third country, will be able to renew residency permits every 60 days • PM Netanyahu says he will try to have detention facilities reopened • Pro-deportation group: Government has long since lost its credibility.
The government said Tuesday that it has abandoned its plan to forcibly deport African migrants who are in Israel illegally.
The government had been working for months on an arrangement to expel thousands of mostly Eritrean and Sudanese men who arrived in Israel through Egypt’s Sinai Desert.
In a response to Israel’s Supreme Court, which has been examining the case, the government wrote, “At this stage, the possibility of carrying out an unwilling deportation to a third country is not on the agenda.”
The migrants will once again be able to renew their residency permits every 60 days, as they were before the deportation push, the government said.
The migrants and rights groups claim they are seeking asylum and are fleeing war and persecution. The government says they are job seekers and that it has every right to protect its borders.
Despite Tuesday’s climb down, the government said immigration authorities would still try to deport migrants voluntarily, drawing criticism from rights group Amnesty International.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said that after failing to reach an agreement with any country to take them in, he would try to draft legislation that would allow the reopening of detention centers in Israel for the migrants.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan tweeted on Tuesday: “I repeat: There is no point in reopening Holot [detention facility] without passing the ‘override bill’ [legislation that would give the Knesset power to overrule High Court decisions revoking laws] and rewriting the parts of the law canceled by the High Court, which allowed the Holot facility to serve as an incentive to encourage infiltrators to leave the country.”
The government’s reversal was welcomed by those facing deportation.
“I’m thrilled. I’m speechless. I was so scared every day. If I can stay here it will be good, I’ve lived here so long. I have a job. I have Israeli friends. I am used to the place,” said Ristom Haliesilase, a 34-year-old Eritrean who lives in Tel Aviv and works as a carer for the elderly.
Around 4,000 migrants have left Israel for Rwanda and Uganda since 2013 under a voluntary program, but Netanyahu has come under pressure from his voter base to expel thousands more.
The headquarters of a pro-deportation group based in south Tel Aviv – home to one of the largest concentrations of illegal migrants – criticized the government.
“The state has long since lost its credibility and ability to govern. All the earlier solutions [to the migrant crisis] were dismissed out of hand by the High Court of Justice, and the residents of south Tel Aviv are stuck in the terrible reality the migrants have created in the city’s southern neighborhoods,” the group said in a statement.
The south Tel Aviv activists said that now is the time for the government to pass the override bill.
“The government must take back governance,. The High Court can’t rule over the country; our fate can’t be left in the hands of people who don’t care about the citizens of Israel,” the group said.
After pulling out of a U.N.-backed relocation plan a few weeks ago, Israel shifted efforts towards finalizing an arrangement to send the migrants against their will to Uganda.
A number of migrant rights groups then petitioned the Supreme Court to block any such policy.
Amnesty also welcomed Tuesday’s decision but criticized Israel’s plan to continue with voluntary deportations.
“In reality, there is nothing voluntary about them. Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers agree to them under pressure. Israel remains under the obligation not to transfer anyone to a country” where they would be unsafe, said Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Amnesty will closely monitor the deportations, it said.
The group Stop the Deportation put it more bluntly, saying, “There is no third country and there won’t be any third country. It’s time for the government to find real, long-term solutions for the asylum seekers and the residents of south Tel Aviv that will address the issues that have been created over the course of years.
“There needs to be a stop to the wool being pulled over people’s eyes. Every shekel wasted on inciteful, hateful campaigns is a shekel that should be invested in the absorption and relocation [in Israel] of the asylum seekers.”
@ Edgar G.:
@ david melech:
There are many, many measures that can be, that must be utilized to alleviate the problems created by infiltrators.
They may be returned to the countries where they crossed the border from. Or they can be sent to third countries where ostensibly, they are not persecuted. Also, at the slightest infraction, their status of temporary residence can be summarily withdrawn and subsequently they may even lose their right to non-refoulement, i.e. they will be deported to the country they claim to have fled from.
Moreover, subjects of countries at war with Israel, e.g. Sudanese citizens, must be categorically refused, especially if they are of the Muslim persuasion, less so if they are persecuted Christians.
Furthermore, it has been observed that Eritrean asylum seekers in Europe periodically visit their home country once they are accepted as refugees. That as well, is sufficient reason to repatriate these people to where they hail from.
For those that remain, that cannot be removed for whatever reason, there are indeed ample further remedies. At arrival, fingerprinting and taking of DNA samples is mandatory. Work permits may be denied. Assistance may be given as payments in kind, in natural food. They may be settled in tent camps. They can be asked to work in their encampments, if this makes sense, and in a humanitarian fashion, of course. They can be asked to show up on a daily schedule.
All these steps must be firmly in place until the undeniable veritable human catastrophe created by the infiltrators in South Tel-Aviv, Arad, and all over the country, has been completely remediated.
Seniors and the infirm are scared to go out of their apartments at night, concerned citizens are asking why has the Israeli government failed them, youth want to know!
@ david melech:
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
As I’ve written twice in the past few days, Bennett should lead his party put of Govt.either as a present and serious threat,or as a fact. Qe cannot allow these infiltrators to remain and proliferate here, either by rape or by marrying some simple minded girl. Also they MUST get rid of Mandelbilt who announces he won’t defend government positions….
Just because they don’t want to go to “this country” or “that country” has no legal standing in Israel which has no constitution. They illegally entered now they can either legally OR ILLEGALLY (according to the High Court) leave, either on their legs or strapped and bound. They could be flown to any isolated country and left there beside a river, with a 3 mth. supply of food.
SERIOUS PROBLEMS REQUIRE STRONG REMEDIES.
When they could have gone with dignity and $3500 they wouldn’t, so they have no right to complain now. They came through several countries to get to Israel, and could be returned to any of them. They were facilitated by those countries to get to Israel. They are nearly all Muslims and this may be a prong of the Islamic Grand Strategy to spread it’s talons throughout the area, first disrupting Israel. Who knows..? They are devious. liars, and murderers, besides being documented terrorists and rapists.
Jews have lost their strength. Withing 3 months after they arrived, and it was obvious the govt. was doing nothing, there should already have been a dozen organisations with baseball bats, hunting them and driving them back over the border.
Political Correctness should be outlawed in Israel….at least in certain matters dealing with the security of the State and the well-being of the People.
If this Overrule Law is not passed Netanyahu and his cronies will suffer at the polls they won’t get a single vote from,Sth. Tel Aviv. But this is the least of their problems. They HAVE to pass that Law, and they MUST get rid of Mandelbilt.
Hopefully Bennett will force an override bill to be adopted expediently, opening the way to removing invaders from Israel.
Infiltrators have made life for many Israeli citizens a hell. As plaintiffs, if they have standing before a Supreme Court at all, as foreign citizens, it must be a very limited standing. They are entitled to rudimentary rights to be treated fairly, but not in any measure the same rights of local citizens.
It is then not too much to require that each and every infiltrator upon registration will immediately provide a DNA sample. This will make police work that much easier in sadly, the many cases of rape. This is an example of something one cannot require of Israeli citizens, but there is no reason not to demand from infiltrators. It will not harm law abiding individuals.
Israel’s founding fathers, for many valid and good reasons, specifically avoided crafting a constitution at the time of Independence.
The Supreme Court, decided to fill this void and unilaterally decreed a range of laws and principles. The judges grossly overstepped their authority, which in the main is to interpret existing laws on the book. This should be the norm for the Supreme Court, perhaps with some exceptions allowed for very few cases of gross and blatant injustice, not usually covered by law. Instead, the Supreme Court has assumed the function of micro managing the country on a weekly basis. Preposterous. Daily policy and administration is the role of democratically elected officials, and should not be usurped by 15 activist justices of the Supreme Court.
The same goes for the Attorney General. Dr. Mandelblitt’s role, is to advise the government, not to run it. Where does he take the arbitrary number of 70 Knesset Members he stipulates are required to pass an override law? Why not 69 or 71?
The current legal system in Israel, as set out by its founding fathers and elaborated in 70 years hence, requires a 61 majority to constitute an override law. Period. If Dr. Mandelblitt thinks otherwise, he is free to run for parliament and create another system. Let him try craft laws with a 70 member vote, if he can garner enough of them. Meanwhile, enough of leftists hectoring about democratic rules they have no understanding of.
i believe international law allows them to be sent to the last country they were in prior to ISRAEL, would that not be Egypt??