African immigration to Israel
[15] Most African migrants are regarded to be legitimate asylum seekers by human rights organizations,[16][17] but the Israeli government says most of them are job seeking work-migrants.
Under international law, Eritrean citizens (who, since 2009, form the majority of the undocumented workers in Israel) cannot be deported due to the opinion of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that Eritrea has a difficult internal situation and a forced recruitment and therefore the Eritrean immigrants are defined as a "temporary humanitarian protection group".
[19] Accordingly, the Israeli authorities grant temporary residence through "conditional release permits" which must be renewed every one to four months, depending on the discretion of the individual immigration official.
[19] Various authorities in Israel estimate that 80–90% of the undocumented workers live primarily in two centers: more than 60% in Tel Aviv and more than 20% Eilat, with a few in Ashdod, Jerusalem and Arad.
Regarding the other asylum requests filed by citizens of other countries and examined individually, the Interior Ministry stated that only a fraction of them were actually eligible for refugee status.
[30] The Israeli immigration police patrols the neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv regularly and arrests asylum seekers who do not carry a valid visa; the punishment can be one to three months in prison.
According to the IDF's Operations Division in 2008, most of the countries from where the illegal immigrants came are (in descending order): Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
There have been cases of abuse against male and female migrants committed by the Bedouin smugglers, including rape, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking, and murder.
Both male and female migrants have also reported many cases of sexual and physical assault, rape, and the forced removal of bodily organs (kidneys, for example).
9,570 citizens of various African countries entered Israel illegally in the first half of 2012, while only 34 did the same in the first six months of 2013, after construction of the main section of the barrier was completed.
[15] However, in 2007, the Israeli government was still issuing three-month renewable "conditional release" visas, which allowed Eritrean and Sudanese refugees to work.
[41] By 2015, the Israeli government began giving Sudanese and Eritrean refugees a choice to either return to their home countries, move to another state, or be imprisoned.
[15] In December 2010, Police commissioner Dudi Cohen stated that despite a decline in robberies in the general population, there was a dramatic increase among the illegal immigrants.
[60] In 2012, the police reported difficulties dealing with crimes committed by this sector due to a lack of interpreters proficient in the Tigrinya language spoken in Eritrea.
[61] In her ruling on the Holot "open detention facility", Israeli Supreme Court justice Edna Arbel stated that regardless of the level of crime committed by infiltrators, the distress of residents of South Tel Aviv should not be underestimated.
[71] In 2012, the Knesset passed an "anti-infiltration law" which meant that many Africans who entered after the bill's passage or those whose visas have expired were sent to the neighboring Saharonim prison without trial.
[72] After the Supreme Court of Israel declared that long-term custody in Sahronim was unconstitutional, the government opened Holot detention center in December 2013.
On both measures, the court sided with the petitioners (the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, ASSAF, Kav LaOved, Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, and Amnesty International–Israel).
[77] The detentions in Holot continued, with illegal immigrants being detained for a year and then prevented from living in Tel Aviv and Eilat upon their release.
[79] A law passed in 2017 required that employers impose a 20 per cent deduction on the wages of workers who entered the country illegally from Egypt.
[83] Relief organizations have been involved in discussions held in Knesset committees on this issue and have submitted a petition against the measures the state has taken to put a halt to the phenomenon of immigration.
[89][90] In 2015, an immigrant from Eritrea, Habtom Zarhum, was beaten to death by a mob after being misidentified as the perpetrator in a terrorist attack at the Beersheva bus station.
In late 2017, early 2018, North American Jewish organizations joined with Israeli NGOs to decry Israel's decision to close Holot and deport asylum seekers.
[31] In 2014, Haaretz economic reporter Nehemiah Strassler wrote that illegal immigrants take the place of manual workers, causing loss of jobs and a reduction in wages.
"[94] Israeli MK Ya'akov Katz, who headed the government committee on issue of illegal asylum seekers, proposed establishing a city near the Egyptian border where the immigrants would live until deportation.
[97] In the Shapira and Kiryat Shalom neighborhoods in southern Tel Aviv a number of real estate agents stated that they would not rent apartments to illegal immigrants.
"[100] In a Channel 2 interview in November 2013, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai scoffed at government policy, saying, "Can 50,000 people be a demographic threat?
[105] On 15 January 2014, the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers met to discuss the Immigration and Border Authority policy and its impact on the business sector.
[109] The Los Angeles-based organization StandWithUs, whose mission is "supporting Israel around the world – through education and fighting anti-Semitism",[110] states that "most of the migrants came to Israel seeking work opportunities, not as refugees escaping war"; as StandWithUs elaborates, "unlike refugees who are fleeing war or persecution, economic migrants leave their countries in search of better work opportunities.
[113] The rabbinic human-rights organization T’ruah, based in New York, has made it a priority to encourage Israel to evaluate all asylum seekers' claims fairly.
