With heart-rending scenes of police rounding up frightened African migrants on the nightly news, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday an orderly deportation process that will "preserve the dignity" of those slated for expulsion.
"The first plane of illegal infiltrators will leave tonight for South Sudan," Netanyahu said. "Next week another plane will leave. The government is today essentially starting the return of the illegal infiltrators to their lands of origin."
Netanyahu said the government is dealing with the migrant problem through the completion of the border fence with Egypt within the next few months; an expedited process to deport infiltrators, in some cases to third countries: and taking away the motivation for others to come to Israel by implementing a number of steps.
These disincentive steps include ending the practice of directing infiltrators to Tel Aviv or other locations, and rather transferring them directly to detention centers where they can be held for up to two years. In addition, Netanyahu said the Knesset approved a law last week to level strict penalties on employers giving the migrants work.
"The infiltrators come here to work," Netanyahu said. "If there will not be work for them here they will have no reason to come."
The Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) had announced on Friday that it was extending a one-week deadline for South Sudanese migrants to voluntarily leave Israel in exchange for 1,000 euros and a flight ticket home courtesy of the State of Israel. The Interior Ministry issued the ultimatum last week, saying the migrants would be arrested and expelled after the deadline was up.
PIBA stated that some 300 people in the South Sudanese migrant community had already opted to leave voluntarily. The entire community is estimated at between 700 and 1,500 people. The one-week deadline was extended due to the relative success of the operation, according to PIBA, which did not specify until when it would extend the deadline. “Operation Going Back Home” was put into effect after the Jerusalem District Court ruled last week that the South Sudanese would not be in physical danger if they were returned to their country.
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