NYT: Israel’s Chilly Reception for African Asylum Seekers
WP: Israeli government to refugees: Go back to Africa or go to prison
HOLOT, Israel — As Europe struggles to stem a spring flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to cross a deadly Mediterranean Sea, Israel has begun to toughen its stance toward refugees, telling unwanted Africans here they must leave now or face an indefinite stay in prison.
Israeli authorities are sending letters to the first of 45,000 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, informing them they have 30 days to accept Israel’s offer of $3,500 in cash and a one-way ticket home or to an unnamed third country in Africa, or face incarceration at Saharonim prison.
Israeli leaders have proclaimed that their tough approach — building a fence along the country’s border, denying work permits for illegal migrants, forcing them into a detention center in the desert — may ultimately save lives by dissuading migrants from attempting a perilous journey. Critics of the Israeli policy counter that a country built by refugees should be more accepting of those fleeing war, poverty and oppression…
Before Israel began cracking down on African migrants a few years ago, the Africans were highly visible in bustling cities, working in kitchens and doing menial labor. There are still neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv filled with Africans. Many Israelis complained they were being “invaded.”
Israel is a nation built by Jewish refugees, and those with Jewish ancestry are encouraged, even courted, to move here and provided wide-ranging assistance. A million Russian speakers came in the 1990s, and Jews from Ethiopia continue to arrive each month.
But fearful that a wave of impoverished Africans, mostly Muslims from Sudan and Christians from Eritrea, would overwhelm the Jewish nature of the state, Israel spent more than $350 million to build a 140-mile fence along its entire border with Egypt.
Before Israel began cracking down on African migrants a few years ago, the Africans were highly visible in bustling cities, working in kitchens and doing menial labor. There are still neighborhoods in south Tel Aviv filled with Africans. Many Israelis complained they were being “invaded.”
Israel is a nation built by Jewish refugees, and those with Jewish ancestry are encouraged, even courted, to move here and provided wide-ranging assistance. A million Russian speakers came in the 1990s, and Jews from Ethiopia continue to arrive each month.
But fearful that a wave of impoverished Africans, mostly Muslims from Sudan and Christians from Eritrea, would overwhelm the Jewish nature of the state, Israel spent more than $350 million to build a 140-mile fence along its entire border with Egypt. Undocumented migrants to Israel are called “infiltrators” by the Israeli government.
The steel barrier, completed in 2013, stopped illegal entry cold: More than 10,000 Africans arrived in 2012; today almost no one attempts the trip.
The fence also shut down human traffickers in the Sinai Peninsula who had become increasingly sadistic, with refugees describing how they were imprisoned in “torture camps” where the Bedouin smugglers raped women and burned captives with molten plastic to extort relatives to send more money to free them.
Comments at WP:
* For SHAME that they should be able to control who enters their country…
* After working with illegal immigrants in CA for 15 yrs. my once liberal viewpoint has shifted radically and I sadly sympathize with Israel. Attitudes toward procreation seem to be similar to those of Mexico and Central America, based on a 60 Minutes interview with refugees fleeing to Sicily and Italy. A woman was pregnant with several young children and the father was wailing about caring for them. Come on. Conditions in their country didn’t arise overnight. One has to ask why they continued to have kids when things were so bad and until they could relocate and become self-reliant. The same situation exists among my students. They fled poverty and cartel violence in their countries and see nothing wrong with producing five kids but do nothing to settle their score with the DHS and become legal (I have two such students in a class at the moment).
Those refugees with kids unfortunately must face the consequences of their actions. I think Israel’s being generous in offering those funds and they should take the deal and settle in a country that’s agreed to take them in. In the meantime, education about population control is in order.
* Maybe Israel’s stance on refugees will start the rest of the world doing something about ISIS and the rest of the terrorists. No body can continue to take refugees without having problems somewhere. Europe is moving in the same direction, but it may take them a lot longer to arrive at the same conclusion.
* Gimme free stuff. Let me in. You are 7M Jews with a high standard surrounded by 500M hostile Arabs with a very low standard (other than the oil kingdoms). But we Africans are 1B poverty stricken people (plus another 100M or so middle class and well off folks on top) with a very very very very (4x) low standard of living. Let’s equalize and let all of us in with you in Israel and Europe! That we’ll all have a very very very (3x) low standard together! I mean, African “refugee” migration has worked out so well in literally the most tolerant places on earth such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland…
* I agree with Israel’s immigration policies regarding African refugees.
I would add, however, that repeat offenders who come back AFTER serving their prison sentences should be transported to an uninhabited island in the middle of some large body of water and dropped off there with basic tools for survival and told that any return to Israel would be an automatic death penalty.
Deportation is somewhat of a joke and is done over and over and over again. It is costly and ineffective if not followed up by dire consequences at some point in the process. If the dire consequences are not there, imprisonment and deportation becomes synonymous with the proverbial revolving door.
* European Jews are being harassed and killed by Muslims.
Israel doesn’t want a bunch of Muslim immigrants flooding their country. Sounds like a reasonable decision to me.
Plus. Name even one primarily Muslim country in that part of the world that is extending a helping hand to their fellow Muslims.
* Israel can do whatever it wants to Palestinians, to immigrants, to Muslims..
Just don’t understand why we still bother giving Israel over $3 billion a year plus our best weaponry.
Their version of democracy is not aligned to ours, and they do not listen to us.
Let them swim on their own.
