Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered the release of over one thousand illegal aliens from African nations current held in detention centers in southern Israel.
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Representatives from several hotels near the Dead Sea are seen outside the Holot detention facility in the south, as they apparently seek migrant workers looking for a job in the hotel industry, Israel Radio reports.
While the Supreme Court upheld the law, it ruled that migrants held at Holot for more than 12 months must be freed and overturned a provision of a law that would have allowed illegal immigrants to be held for up to 20 months without trial.
As Israeli authorities began releasing 1,178 asylum seekers, the refugees became dismayed upon learning about the interior ministry’s order. The Supreme Court in August found the law constitutional despite objection from human rights groups, but limited the time of imprisonment.
Most of Israel’s illegal African migrants are from Eritrea or Sudan, and cannot be deported due to fear that they could face persecution if returned or an absence of diplomatic relations with Israel.
Half will be released on Tuesday and the rest on Wednesday, according to Israel Prison Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued an influx of Africans threatens Israel’s Jewish character.
“Why Arad? I had a friend in Holot, I can go there and there I can take care of myself”, Suliman said. I don’t know anyone.
Anat Ovadia, of the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants – Israel, slammed the government for leaving the migrants to their own devices in Israeli cities without any “infrastructure to accept them”. I have no money.
Asked where most of the migrants would go in light of the restriction against living in Tel Aviv and Eilat, Ovadia said many still did not know where they would end up. Israel has erected a barrier along the Sinai border which has largely stemmed the flow of migrants entering the country.
The bail terms included banning the migrants from Tel Aviv or the southern city Eilat – places where the migrant population is already quite big.
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A United Nations report released in June (PDF) detailed how Eritrea, under President Isaias Afwerki’s iron-fisted regime for 22 years, has created a repressive system in which people are routinely arrested on a whim, detained, tortured, killed or “disappeared”.
