http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-israel-migrantsafricans-update-1l5e8h731r-20120607,0,2438491,full.story
UPDATE 1-Israeli court clears deporting South Sudan migrants
Reuters
4:34 a.m. CDT, June 7, 2012
* Interior minister sees "first step" for mass expulsions
* Most migrants from Eritrea and Sudan, whose status differs
(Adds background)
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM, June 7 (Reuters) - An Israeli court upheld on
Thursday the planned deportation of South Sudanese deemed to
have entered Israel illegally, though government pledges of
wider crackdowns on African migrants remained in question.
Rejecting a petition by human rights groups that had delayed
the Interior Ministry's April 1 deportation order, Jerusalem
District Court ruled the state was not obligated to extend de
facto asylum to the estimated 1,500 migrants from South Sudan.
The petitioners had not proven that deportees would face
"risk to life or exposure to serious damage", the court said,
finding in favour of assessments by Israeli diplomats in South
Sudan, which declared independence last year after decades of
fighting with northern neighbour Sudan.
The bulk of the some 60,000 Africans who have walked into
Israel through its porous desert border with Egypt are from
Sudan, an overwhelmingly Arab Muslim nation that does not
recognise the Jewish state, and from war-ravaged Eritrea.
The rightist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
sees in the migrants an economic and demographic threat to
Israel's already ethnically strained population of 7.8 million,
and anti-African street protests in urban centres have turned
increasingly violent.
But while Israel says the vast majority of them came
illegally to work, humanitarian agencies argue many of the
migrants should be considered as refugees with asylum rights.
William Tall of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees said the Jerusalem court's support for the Interior
Ministry's removal of "collective protection" status for the
South Sudanese appeared to be in line with the formal end of
their country's war with Sudan.
OPPORTUNITY
"We have been assured by the government that they (South
Sudanese) still enjoy the individual opportunity to apply for
asylum," Tall told Reuters, nothing that continued territorial
disputes between Khartoum and Juba may still justify refugee
claims.
While the Jerusalem court case was heard, Interior Minister
Eli Yishai said he had ordered immigration inspectors to start
detaining the South Sudanese and prepare their deportation.
A ministry spokeswoman, Sabine Haddad, said on Thursday that
there had been no round-ups yet, but that the 1,500 migrants
would now be "processed" for deportation "in the near future".
Another official said Israel had assigned 11 clerks to vet
any refugee claims, many of which could be complicated by some
applicants' lack of documentation. The official predicted that
processing of the South Sudanese would take several weeks.
There was no immediate comment from Juba. Tall said that
between 800 and 900 South Sudanese have voluntarily returned
from Israel in recent years, despite the lack of reliable,
scheduled flights between the countries.
An Israeli official said the migrant problem was discussed
in talks with South Sudanese leaders. Asked whether this
entailed any Israeli inducements for cash-strapped Juba's help
in repatriating the migrants, the official said only: "We have
developed a positive relationship with South Sudan."
Israel Radio quoted Yishai, who heads a party run by rabbis
in Netanyahu's coalition, as saying he hoped Thursday's ruling
would be "the first in a series of measures that would allow for
the deportation of all citizens of Eritrea and north Sudan".
But an official briefed on Israel's planning said the
government was "in no position to deport all of these people.
Eritrea and Sudan are completely different situations".
As a stop-gap, Yishai wants migrants held in desert
stockades "so they do not disperse", according to Israel Radio.
"This is not about waging war against them, but about
safeguarding the Zionist-Jewish dream in the Land of Israel," he
was quoted as saying.
(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by Jeffrey Heller)
Received on Thu Jun 07 2012 - 12:16:14 EDT
