African migrants demonstrating in Tel Aviv after the announcement
Jerusalem, Israel
The Ministry of Interior announced on Tuesday that it will begin issuing notices to thousands of African migrants with a warning that they must leave Israel by April or face jail time. Benjamin Netanyahu, the country's Prime Minister, called the migrants' presence a threat to Israel's social fabric and Jewish character. In his statement, he said that, “Every country must guard its borders...The infiltrators have a clear choice — cooperate with us and leave voluntarily, respectably, humanely and legally, or we will have to use other tools at our disposal, which are also according to the law.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
If one agrees to leave voluntarily by the end of March they will be given a one- way plane ticket and $3500 cash. Failure to agree to these demands will guarantee incarceration. According to the government, already 20,000 migrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea, have left Israel.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a United Nations programme with the mandate to protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people, and assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country, was concerned over Israel's refugee relocation proposals.
They have expressed concern over the secrecy surrounding this policy and the lack of transparency concerning its implementation. UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Volker Türk in a statement said, " As party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Israel has legal obligations to protect refugees and other persons in need of international protection...UNHCR and the international community have been assisting Israel to meet its international obligations, including by resettling or finding other durable solutions for 2,400 refugees who have departed from Israel in the last couple of years. ”
Another challenge is that for the migrants who have been resettled to a third country such as Rwanda have not found adequate safety or a durable solution to their plight, and have continued on dangerous journeys to Europe. Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli nonprofit group noted that migrants are not granted any status or work permits there, nor a safe haven.
Israeli officials insist that most of the migrants are not fleeing persecution but came as economic migrants looking for work.
What do you guys think? Is Israel justified in deporting thousands of refugees and economic migrants or is this an extreme case of xenophobia?