DEPUTY FM SAYS ISRAEL

CAN'T MONITOR FATE OF

AFRICAN DEPORTEES
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Top legal experts: Migrant deportation in violation of international law
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African deportation is legal and humane, critics are misguided, claims NGO
BY LAHAV HARKOV

FEBRUARY 6, 2018 22:46

“We have to check what the High Court’s expectation is.”

2 minute read.

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South Sudanese man with suitcases prior to deportation. (photo credit: Ben Hartman)

The government’s plan to deport migrants to a third country in Africa does

not meet the standard set by the High Court of Justice, Deputy Foreign
Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a
recording aired on Kan News Tuesday night.
Soon after the news, Hotovely released a statement saying that “the stage
meets all of the High Court’s standards.”

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However, in Monday’s Likud faction meeting Hotovely said the opposite,

according to Kan Political Reporter Zeev Kam. At the meeting’s opening, in
front of the press, Netanyahu encouraged Likud MKs to “tell the truth” about
the deportations, to combat what he characterized as lies by those who
oppose the policy.

“Currently, there’s a point that we have to deal with before the High Court,
the point of following up on people who are deported according to
international law,” Hotovely said in the faction meeting. “We have a problem
because today we have no way to keep track of people who go there. If they
reach Rwanda or Uganda, it doesn’t matter, we have no way to follow them.”

Hotovely cited statements by Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem

to a Knesset State Control Committee meeting held behind closed doors,
indicating that she was describing the professional stance of the Foreign
Ministry.

However, Hotovely said, “there are all kinds of proposals to respond to it...
We can check, as we did in the past, a month after they arrive at their
destination country, that they’re really acclimating and the country is keeping
to the agreement. I understand that is one of the High Court’s demands from
us.”
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Netanyahu tried to understand how Israel is supposed to follow up on the

deportees: “We have to check what the High Court’s expectation is,” he said.

On Sunday, the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority

sent notices to 20,000 single men of working age from Eritrea and Sudan,
which say they must leave the country within 60 days for an unspecified third
country, or they will be deported or imprisoned. Those who voluntarily leave
will receive $3,500 before boarding the plane.

There are about 38,000 African migrants in Israel, 15,000 of whom have
applied for asylum. The Population and Immigration Authority has checked
6,500 of the applications and approved 11, in addition to approving more
than 200 applications of migrants from the Darfur region of Sudan.

Women, children and married men are not currently subject to deportation or
imprisonment.