Israel Releases Hundreds of Migrants From Desert Facility

Israel released hundreds of African migrants from a desert detention centre today after a court order, but asylum seekers were left with few options after being barred from two cities.

It’s estimated that more than 50,000 asylum-seekers from war-torn Sudan and Eritrea are in Israel.

It is barred from sending them back to their home countries because they would likely face harm, but Israeli law also prevents the government from deporting them without their consent.

The court partially rejected a petition against the law, ruling that while jailing migrants at the Holot detention facility in the Negev is constitutional, holding them for up to 20 months is disproportionate.

The scope of the restriction and whether it will apply to all hours of the day or just overnight was unclear, Sabine Haddad, spokeswoman for the Population, Immigration, and Borders authority (PIBA), said in response to the reports, but confirmed that it applies only to Tel Aviv and Eilat. I don’t have money to rent an apartment. Israel says those detained are primarily economic migrants in search of work whose swelling numbers threaten the country’s Jewish character. “Where do I go now?” “I don’t know what to do”, Hussein said.

Tuesday’s release was bittersweet for Faysal Hussein, 28, from Sudan.

The government is reportedly not expected to help asylum seekers find work or housing and the Israel Prison Service, which runs Holot, is not transporting the released asylum seekers anywhere. De facto, numerous migrants already in Eilat and Tel Aviv are employed in menial jobs such as cleaners or dishwashers in restaurants.

Many migrants leaving the detention facility Tuesday said they would go to other, smaller cities, where they hoped to find menial jobs. It ruled that illegal migrants held for more than a year should be released within two weeks.

Only four Eritreans have received refugee status in Israel, according to Elizabeth Tsurkov, a project director at the Hotline for Migrant Workers, an advocacy group.

“If the High Court lived among us, it would know about all the attacks here, all the crime, that people here have no sense of personal security,” Yigal Ben-David, a protester at the demonstration said.

The Infiltration Prevention Act, which was approved in December 2014, enables the detention of asylum-seekers who entered the country illegally. Migrants are allowed to leave Holot but must sign in several times a day and sleep there, making it impossible to stray far or hold jobs.