Hundreds of illegal infiltrators from Africa fled from their detention facility in metropolitan Tel Aviv Sunday night and marched on a highway in southern Israel on Monday in a demonstration to demand refugee status.
The illegal immigrants are allowed to leave the detention center in the day and return at night. Instead of going back to the center Sunday night, they traveled south to Be’er Sheva, camped out at the bus station and starting marching north towards Jerusalem in the morning.
They are protesting last week’s law passed by the Knesset that allows them to be held in a detention facility for one year without trial. The Supreme Court recently struck down legislation that they could be held for administrative detention for three years, but the judges suggested they might agree to a shorter term.
If the government wants, it could take advantage of their violating conditions of detention as cause to try to deport them after having determined that they came into Israel looking for a better life and not to escape conditions where their human rights were being violated.