JERUSALEM (JTA) — More than 200 African migrants in jail in Israel were released by order of the Supreme Court after a deal to deport them to another African country remained unsigned.

Some 207 African migrants and asylum seekers were released over several hours on Sunday from the Saharonim Prison in southern Israel, where they have been held after refusing to leave Israel voluntarily.

The Supreme Court last week ordered them to be released on Sunday – the day that the government was to present its final plan for sending them to another country, in the absence of such a plan, which would require agreement from a third country to take them in. The court also ordered the government’s deportation plan suspended for an additional two weeks, Haaretz reported.

On Thursday Uganda said it was considering a request from Israel to take in 500 African migrants that Israel would deport — the first time an African country confirmed that it was going along with the Israeli government’s controversial deportation plan.

Uganda was one of two countries that had surfaced in reports as a possible destination for some 38,000 African asylum seekers in Israel to be deported under a plan announced in January by the Israeli government. Under the plan, migrants who had chosen to leave by March 31 would receive a payment of $3,500 as well as free airfare and other incentives.

The deportations would be undertaken without the typical protections afforded asylum seekers, which can take years to process. The migrants, their advocates and refugee groups said that hasty, unregulated deportations would place the migrants in danger.

Netanyahu’s plan prompted an outcry from migrant advocates in Israel and a broad swath of the U.S. Jewish organizational community, and at the beginning of the month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would instead seek the orderly departure of half the migrants under U.N. procedures. That, in turn, prompted an outcry from Israeli right-wingers, which led Netanyahu to reverse himself and revert to his plan of deporting the migrants to African countries.

Announcing the reversal, Netanyahu confirmed for the first time reports that one of the destinations Netanyahu had hoped for was Rwanda, but that country had resisted the Israeli government’s overtures. </s> Israel on Sunday began freeing 207 African migrants from prison following a supreme court ruling after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controversially reversed a deal with the UN refugee agency on the detainees’ fate.

By early evening, a spokeswoman for the immigration authority told AFP, about half had been released and the Israel Prisons Service said the operation should be completed by the end of the day.

There are about 42,000 African migrants in Israel. Authorities had transferred 207 from a nearby open detention facility in February after they refused to leave the country.

The Israeli government says the migrants in Israel are job seekers and that it has every right to protect its borders. The migrants and rights groups say they are seeking asylum and are fleeing war and persecution.

About 4,000 migrants have left Israel for Rwanda and Uganda since 2013 under a voluntary programme, but Netanyahu has come under pressure from his right-wing voter base to expel thousands more.

Israel’s supreme court on 10 April gave the government until Sunday to finalise a deal it said it was working on to deport some of the migrants to another country.

Without the deal, the court said authorities must release those held at Saharonim Prison.

“In light of the fact that the negotiations between Israel and a third country are still ongoing and due to a supreme court ruling, the migrants held in Saharonim Prison will be freed today,” the immigration authority said in a statement earlier.

Uganda said on 13 April it was “positively considering” the proposal from Israel to accept 500 of the mostly Eritrean and Sudanese migrants.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu cancelled an agreement with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, aimed at avoiding forced deportations of thousands of migrants.

The reversal, just hours after Netanyahu announced the deal himself in a televised address, came after pressure from his right-wing base.

That left the government with its initial plan, announced in January, under which migrants who entered Israel illegally would face a choice between leaving voluntarily or facing indefinite imprisonment with eventual forced expulsion.

As the migrants could face danger or imprisonment if returned to their homelands, Israel had offered to relocate them to an unidentified African country – either Rwanda or Uganda, according to deportees and aid workers.

Rwanda has since said it could not be part of the arrangement.

The UN refugee agency has strongly criticised the deportation plan and urged Israel to return to the deal, which would have allowed thousands of migrants to remain in the country in return for an equal number being relocated to Western nations.

Some Israelis, including Holocaust survivors who say the country has a special duty to protect migrants, have also opposed the deportation plan.

Of the 42,000 African migrants in Israel, half are children, women or men with families who are not facing immediate deportation, according to interior ministry figures.

Migrants began entering Israel through what was then a porous Egyptian border in 2007. The border has since been strengthened, all but ending illegal crossings. </s> • African migrants must leave Israel within three months or face imprisonment
• There are 38,000 migrants who entered the country illegally
• Migrants will be given up to $3,500 if they leave in 90 days
• Rwanda said it could take in up to 10,000 migrants

The Israeli government plans to notify thousands of African migrants in the country that they must leave within three months or face imprisonment.

Migrants who do not have a refugee application pending will be given a notice -- instructing them to leave the country or face an indefinite amount of time in prison -- the next time they are obliged to appear at an interior ministry office to renew their residency permits.

"Two options only: voluntary deportation or sitting in prison," Israel's interior minister, Arye Deri, and the public security minister, Gilad Erdan said.

Israel's Population and Immigration Authority told the BBC there are 38,000 migrants who entered the country illegally including 1,420 being held in detention facilities.

The migrants will be given up to $3,500 if they leave Israel within the next 90 days and the country will begin jailing any who remain in April. Children, elderly people, and victims of slavery and human trafficking are exempt from the order.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi criticized the plan.

"The Israeli government's decision to expel 40,000 African asylum seekers is of great concern," he said. "Israel has a painful history of migration and exile. New generations must not forget that refugees do not flee out of choice but because they don't have any other choice."
• Migrants in Libya Sold as Slaves for a Few Hundred Dollars

Most of the migrants entered Israel by crossing through Egypt from Eritrea and Sudan seeking asylum.

The Center for Refugees and Migrants, Amnesty International Israel, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and other groups signed a letter calling for the expulsions to be stopped.

"Anyone who has a heart must oppose the expulsion of the refugees," the letter stated.

Israel's government said the relocation will be humane and voluntary and migrants will have the choice to return to their home country or a third country.

Rwanda said it could take in up to 10,000 people as part of a deal in which Israel would pay the country $5,000 per person.

"Rwanda is not a safe place. All the evidence indicates that anyone expelled from Israel to Rwanda finds himself there without status and without rights, exposed to threats, kidnappings, torture and trafficking," the letter from the activist groups said.

This article has been adapted from its original source. </s> TEL AVIV: Israel will release 207 African migrants from prison following a supreme court ruling after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controversially reversed a deal with the UN refugee agency on the detainees’ fate.

 There are around 42,000 African migrants in Israel. Authorities transferred 207 of them from a nearby open detention facility in February after they refused to leave the country. Israel’s supreme court on April 10 gave the government until Sunday to finalise a deal it said it was working on to deport some of the migrants to another country.

 Without a deal, the court said authorities must release those held at Saharonim prison.

 “In light of the fact that the negotiations between Israel and a third country are still ongoing and due to a supreme court ruling, the migrants held in Saharonim prison will be freed today,” the immigration service said in a statement.

 Uganda said on Friday it was “positively considering” a proposal from Israel to accept 500 of the mostly Eritrean and Sudanese migrants. Earlier this month, Netanyahu cancelled an agreement with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, aimed at avoiding forced deportations of thousands of migrants. The reversal, just hours after he announced the deal himself in a televised address, followed pressure from his right-wing base.

 That left the government with its initial plan, announced in January, under which migrants who entered Israel illegally would face a choice between leaving voluntarily or facing indefinite imprisonment with eventual forced expulsion.

 As the migrants could face danger or imprisonment, Israel had offered to relocate them to an unnamed African country. — AFP </s> Jerusalem, Undefined | AFP | Israel on Sunday freed 207 African migrants from prison following a supreme court ruling after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controversially reversed a deal with the UN refugee agency on the detainees’ fate.

After an operation lasting several hours a spokeswoman for the immigration authority told AFP late on Sunday that all detainees had been released.

There are around 42,000 African migrants in Israel. Authorities transferred 207 of them from a nearby open detention facility in February after they refused to leave the country.

Israel’s supreme court on April 10 gave the government until Sunday to finalise a deal it said it was working on to deport some of the migrants to another country.

Without a deal, the court said authorities must release those held at Saharonim prison.

“In light of the fact that the negotiations between Israel and a third country are still ongoing and due to a supreme court ruling, the migrants held in Saharonim prison will be freed today,” the immigration authority said in a statement earlier Sunday.

Uganda said on Friday it was “positively considering” a proposal from Israel to accept 500 of the mostly Eritrean and Sudanese migrants.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu cancelled an agreement with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, aimed at avoiding forced deportations of thousands of migrants.

The reversal, just hours after he announced the deal himself in a televised address, followed pressure from his right-wing base.

That left the government with its initial plan, announced in January, under which migrants who entered Israel illegally would face a choice between leaving voluntarily or facing indefinite imprisonment with eventual forced expulsion.

As the migrants could face danger or imprisonment if returned to their homelands, Israel had offered to relocate them to an unnamed African country — either Rwanda or Uganda, according to deportees and aid workers.

Rwanda has since said it could not be part of the arrangement.

The UN refugee agency has strongly criticised the deportation plan and urged Israel to return to the deal, which would have allowed thousands of migrants to remain in the country in return for an equal number being relocated to Western nations.

Some Israelis, including Holocaust survivors who say the country has a special duty to protect migrants, have also opposed the deportation plan.

Of the 42,000 African migrants in Israel, half are children, women or men with families who are not facing immediate deportation, according to interior ministry figures.

Migrants began entering Israel through what was then a porous Egyptian border in 2007. The border has since been strengthened, all but ending illegal crossings.

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This post was syndicated from The Independent Uganda:. Click here to read the full text on the original website. </s> Israel on Sunday began freeing 207 African migrants from prison following a supreme court ruling after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controversially reversed a deal with the U.N. refugee agency on the detainees' fate.

By early evening, a spokeswoman for the immigration authority told AFP, about half had been released and the Israel Prisons Service said the operation should be completed by the end of the day.

There are around 42,000 African migrants in Israel. Authorities transferred 207 of them from a nearby open detention facility in February after they refused to leave the country.

Israel's supreme court on April 10 gave the government until Sunday to finalize a deal it said it was working on to deport some of the migrants to another country.

Without a deal, the court said authorities must release those held at Saharonim prison.

"In light of the fact that the negotiations between Israel and a third country are still ongoing and due to a supreme court ruling, the migrants held in Saharonim prison will be freed today," the immigration authority said in a statement earlier.

Uganda said on Friday it was "positively considering" a proposal from Israel to accept 500 of the mostly Eritrean and Sudanese migrants.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu canceled an agreement with the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, aimed at avoiding forced deportations of thousands of migrants.

The reversal, just hours after he announced the deal himself in a televised address, followed pressure from his right-wing base.

That left the government with its initial plan, announced in January, under which migrants who entered Israel illegally would face a choice between leaving voluntarily or facing indefinite imprisonment with eventual forced expulsion.

As the migrants could face danger or imprisonment if returned to their homelands, Israel had offered to relocate them to an unnamed African country -- either Rwanda or Uganda, according to deportees and aid workers.

Rwanda has since said it could not be part of the arrangement.

The U.N. refugee agency has strongly criticized the deportation plan and urged Israel to return to the deal, which would have allowed thousands of migrants to remain in the country in return for an equal number being relocated to Western nations.

Some Israelis, including Holocaust survivors who say the country has a special duty to protect migrants, have also opposed the deportation plan.

Of the 42,000 African migrants in Israel, half are children, women or men with families who are not facing immediate deportation, according to interior ministry figures.

Migrants began entering Israel through what was then a porous Egyptian border in 2007. The border has since been strengthened, all but ending illegal crossings. </s> More than 200 African migrants in jail in Israel were released Sunday by order of the Supreme Court, after a deal to deport them to another African country remained unsigned.

In total, 207 African migrants and asylum seekers were released over several hours from the Saharonim Prison in southern Israel, where they had been held since refusing to leave Israel voluntarily.

The Supreme Court last week ordered them to be released on Sunday — the day that the government was to present its final plan for sending them to another country. The court also ordered the government’s deportation plan suspended for an additional two weeks, Haaretz reported.

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The state informed the High Court of Justice that negotiations with a third country, widely reported to be Uganda, to accept the deported migrants from Israel were still ongoing.

Israel has been holding talks with Uganda and has said it is “highly probable” a deal would be clinched.

A senior Ugandan minister acknowledged for the first time on Friday that his country was “positively considering” a request by Israel to accept 500 African asylum seekers. In a statement released ahead of a press conference in Kampala, State Minister for Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Refugees Musa Ecweru confirmed his country was in talks with Jerusalem to accept several hundred refugees deported from Israel.

Israel’s Channel 10 news reported Friday that an Israeli emissary dispatched to the country has thus far failed to persuade the Ugandan authorities to sign off on a previous verbal agreement to take in a large number of migrant deportees.

Until Friday, Uganda consistently denied that a deportation deal with Israel exists, despite reports that it was accepting migrants deported from Israel.

Earlier this month, 58 migrants were freed from Saharonim after a similar reported deal with Rwanda fell through. Rwanda, another “third-party country” that had reportedly agreed to accept asylum seekers from Israel, has also denied the existence of any deal and said it will not absorb any migrants expelled from Israel.

The developments came earlier this month, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, and hours later canceled, a new agreement with the UN’s refugee agency that would have seen some 16,000 African migrants resettled in Western nations and a similar number given temporary status in Israel. The prime minister froze the deal shortly after announcing it, following an outcry from right-wing politicians and advocacy groups.

The presence of the primarily Sudanese and Eritrean migrants in Israel has become a key political issue. Israel’s earlier deportation policy to the African countries, which offered each migrant $3,500 and a plane ticket, had been condemned by Israeli activists and the United Nations as chaotic, poorly executed, and unsafe.

About 1,700 asylum seekers were “willingly deported” to Uganda in the past three years, but the government wants future deportations to take place much faster, at the rate of around 600 per month, rather than 600 per year. For this to happen, it needs a country that will accept asylum seekers who were forcibly deported, a stance that is unpopular in the international community.

Asylum seekers who were “willingly deported” to Uganda and Rwanda in the past have told The Times of Israel they faced serious danger and even imprisonment after arriving in Africa without proper documents, and were not allowed to stay in Rwanda, but forced to cross the border illegally to other countries.

A news report on Friday said visas issued by Israel, purportedly on behalf of Uganda, to African asylum seekers as they are about to leave the country are “totally fake.”

The Supreme Court froze the deportations in mid-March in response to a petition.

Stuart Winer contributed to this report. </s> Jerusalem — Israel said on Wednesday it would pay thousands of African migrants living illegally in the country to leave, threatening them with jail if they were caught after the end of March.

In public remarks at a cabinet meeting on the payment programme, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a barrier Israel completed in 2013 along its border with Egypt had effectively cut off a stream of "illegal infiltrators" from Africa after some 60,000 crossed the desert frontier.

The vast majority came from Eritrea and Sudan and many said they had fled war and persecution as well as economic hardship, but Israel treats them as economic migrants.

The plan launched this week offers African migrants a $3,500 payment from the Israeli government and a free air ticket to return home or go to "third countries", which rights groups identified as Rwanda and Uganda.

"We have expelled about 20,000 and now the mission is to get the rest out," Netanyahu said.

An immigration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were some 38,000 migrants living illegally in Israel and some 1,420 were being held in two detention centres.

"Beyond the end of March, those who leave voluntarily will receive a significantly smaller payment that will shrink even more with time, and enforcement measures will begin," the official said, referring to incarceration. </s> Jerusalem, Undefined | AFP | Israel plans to force tens of thousands of African migrants to leave over the next three months by threatening to arrest those who stay, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday.

Under the plan, some 38,000 migrants who entered Israel illegally, mainly Eritreans and Sudanese, will have until the end of March to leave.

Each will receive a plane ticket and $3,500 (2,900 euros) to do so. After March, this amount will decrease and those who continue to refuse to go will face arrest.

Holot, an open facility in Israel’s desert south that can host 1,200 migrants who are allowed to leave to work during the day, is also set to be closed.

When the plan was first announced in November, the United Nations refugee agency expressed concerns.

Netanyahu on Wednesday defended the plan when he spoke about it before a cabinet meeting.

“Every country must maintain its borders, and protecting the borders from illegal infiltration is both a right and a basic duty of a sovereign state,” he said.

Israel tacitly recognises that the Sudanese and Eritreans cannot be returned to their dangerous homelands, so it has signed deals with Rwanda and Uganda, which agree to accept departing migrants on condition they consent to the arrangement, activists say.

Migrants started coming in large numbers across the porous border between Israel and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in 2007, when nearly 5,000 entered, interior ministry figures show.

The government has since completed fencing the border and deploying electronic sensors. In the first six months of last year, no one made it across.

Over the years, those caught at the Egyptian frontier were detained at prisons in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

On release they were given bus tickets to Tel Aviv, arriving at the central bus station on the south side of the city.

Israeli residents of southern Tel Aviv have long complained of their presence and right-wing politicians have pledged to heed calls to force them out, often with harsh rhetoric.

During a visit in August, Netanyahu pledged to “return south Tel Aviv to the citizens of Israel”. adding that the Africans were “not refugees but illegal infiltrators”.
Israel announces plans to deport African migrants residing in the country illegally. Migrants will be given 90 days to leave the country or face imprisonment.