Netanyahu Moves to Step Up Legal Deportation of Illegal Migrants

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is moving ahead with policy of keeping infiltration of Africans at zero and to move ahead with a rapid deportation of those who cannot remain in Israel legally.

He told a meeting on illegal migrants Thursday, "The number [of infiltrators] is zero and it will continue, but this is only the first mission. The second mission is to continue repatriations, including the repatriation of those illegal migrants who have already entered Israel. We want to achieve both of these things, of course by legal and accepted methods, and thus we are holding this discussion."

A recent Supreme Court decision ruled that Israel must end the administrative detention of African infiltrators who have been held up to three years without formal charges. The government must review each case and decide whether the immigrants can remain in Israel as those seeking asylum or are have no such legal status.

Interior Minister Gideon Saar said, "The High Court of Justice ruling has created a new situation that we must deal with….  We cannot remain without tools at a time when we know that Israel is the only Western country that borders Africa. … We must change the existing situation, which is unacceptable, in which tens of thousands of illegal migrants are in Israel.”