Israel Says It Will Deport South Sudanese Migrants
Now that their country has gained independence, thousands of migrants from South Sudan must leave Israel or face deportation, Israel’s Interior Ministry said Tuesday.
Some 7,000 South Sudanese are believed to be in Israel, part of a larger influx of some 50,000 African economic migrants and asylum seekers who have poured into the country in recent years.
Sabine Haddad, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, said the South Sudanese migrants will be offered voluntary deportations that include a $1,300 grant and a plane ticket home. After March 31, those caught will be deported, she said.
“Now that South Sudan has become an independent state, it is time for you to return to your homeland,” a ministry statement said.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan last July.
William Tall of the United Nation’s High Commission on Refugees said Israel must individually screen asylum applications by South Sudanese to see if they are genuine refugees. Otherwise, Tall said, Israel would be in violation of agreements it signed about asylum seekers.
With the help of paid smugglers, Africans have been sneaking into Israel through its porous border with Egypt’s Sinai desert since 2005.
Their numbers have surged as word spread of safety and job opportunities in the relatively prosperous Jewish state. Most have come from Sudan and Eritrea, where many fled persecution and abuse.
Israel has offered protected status to the Sudanese and Eritreans because of abuses there, allowing them to stay and work in Israel. Many have found their way to the impoverished southern neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, an area with so many migrants that Israelis have labeled it “little Africa.”
The influx has sparked a national debate. Some Israelis fear the migrants will compromise the state’s Jewish character and have become an economic and social burden. Others don’t want their country, which grew out of the Nazi genocide of Jews in World War II, to turn away people escaping persecution.
Israel is trying to cut down on infiltration of migrants by building a a 150-mile (250-kilometer) barrier along the border with Egypt, expanding its detention facility and threatening stiff punishments to people who assist or employ them.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israel-deport-south-sudanese-15478927#.TylF_cVrPTQ
Israel announces South Sudan asylum-seekers have until March to leave country
After South Sudanese independence, Population Authority said asylum-seekers could safely return home; meanwhile, Petah Tikva District Court stays deportation order on 130 Ivory Coast families.
By Dana Weiler-Polak
One thousand asylum-seekers from South Sudan are losing their collective protection, and those who do not leave by the end of March will be deported, the Population and Immigration Authority announced on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Petah Tikva District Court stayed a deportation order against 130 families from the Ivory Coast. A month ago, the authority announced that they would be deported, too.
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Ivorian Yapi Yves-Cesaire and his family in their south Tel Aviv home earlier last month. |
| Photo by: Alon Ron |
The Ivorians were given a month to leave voluntarily, after the Israeli authorities said that they could return home safely because the civil war there had ended.
Following South Sudan’s declaration of independence in July, the Population Authority decided that these citizens could safely return home, too.
They had received collective protection prior to the declaration of independence because Sudan considers Israel an enemy country.
The authority said it would give every departing South Sudanese citizen a $1,300 grant to ease his or her return home.
Critics called the move premature, inappropriate and dangerous.
“South Sudanese citizens must have full access to determination of refugee status on a case-by-case basis if they so desire,” said Sharon Harel, the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Israel.
“If such access is not made possible, it will contravene the refugee convention and Israel’s commitment to it,” Harel added.
“People have to be given time to get organized, to know where they are going |And if they have a place to live and a job. They can’t uproot their lives in Israel and ensure a new life in South Sudan within two months,” said Sunday Ding, an asylum-seeker from South Sudan who has been in Israel since 2006 and is now a student at Tel Aviv University.
“Unfortunately we still hear … that the situation in South Sudan is not good and people are being murdered, so to force them to go back is regrettable,” said Hamed, another asylum-seeker.
Some of the Ivorians who appealed to the court have families.
In some cases their status as asylum-seekers is under review, or they have medical problems or humanitarian reasons for their request to stay in Israel.
The appeal states that the Interior Ministry’s decision to send the Ivorians home is “premature, contrary to the United Nations’ position, and places their lives in danger.”
The Population and Immigration Authority says there are approximately 2,000 Ivorians in Israel; other estimates state that there are no more than 500.
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