Israeli Court Scraps Law Targeting Illegal Migrants
Ruling Deals a Blow to Netanyahu's Tough Policy on Africans
TEL AVIV—Israel's Supreme Court unanimously struck down as unconstitutional a law permitting automatic three-year jail terms for illegal migrants, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's get-tough policy on Africans who sneaked into the Jewish state from Egypt.
The 9-0 decision could bring about the release within months of more than 2,000 illegal migrants—among them minors—being held in desert prisons in overcrowded conditions.
Israeli immigration officers check documents of South Sudanese migrants .
The ruling was a landmark in Israel's dilemma over how to handle tens of thousands of illegal African migrants who arrived mostly from Sudan and Eritrea over the past decade and have settled in Israeli cities like Tel Aviv.
Mr. Netanyahu, who calls them a threat to Israel's national security, built a fence along the Egyptian border to stop the flow and has looked for an African country to absorb the illegal migrants.
In a victory for human-rights groups who have demanded the migrants be recognized as refugees, tThe court ruled against a 2012 amendment to Israel's anti-infiltration law that permitted jailing migrants, even though they weren't a public threat, to deter illegal migrants.
"We can't negate basic and fundamental rights, while blatantly injuring the human dignity and liberty in the framework of solving problem that requires an appropriate diplomatic and systematic solution,'' wrote Supreme Court Justice Edna Arbel.
The Supreme Court ruled that the migrants must now be considered for release within 90 days under Israel's Law of Entry, which forbids extended detention. Israel's anti-infiltration law was passed in the 1950s to prevent the return of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and to handle guerrilla infiltrators from neighboring Arab countries. Mr. Netanyahu said the government would respect the court's decision, but vowed to find other means of blocking and repatriating Africans who are there illegally.
Estimated at about 60,000, the community of illegal African migrants has stirred social friction and occasional violence with residents of blue-collar neighborhoods, kicking up criticism of Israeli authorities.
These recent arrivals often learned of jobs and opportunities from Ethiopian Jews who landed in Israel during a wave of legal migration, when Israel actively sought to repatriate isolated Jews from enclaves world-wide.
"This is a decision which is disconnected from what is happening on the ground," wrote Miri Regev, an Israeli lawmaker from Mr. Netanyahu's Likud Party, on her Facebook page. "This is a sad day for the residents of south Tel Aviv. The Supreme Court sentenced them to living a life of fear and worry. The high court in its decision gave a kosher certificate to the phenomenon of infiltration."
The completion of a new border fence with Egypt has virtually cut off the flow of thousands of migrants per month. Israel has also persuaded some 3,500 Africans to go back home or to other African countries—500 of them from the detention centers. Human-rights groups have accused the government of placing psychological pressure on the migrants to leave Israel.
In recent months, Israel's press has reported that the country reached an agreement with Uganda to absorb the migrants, though the Ugandan government denied the reports. Israel has also weighed legislation to prevent refugees from sending money earned in Israel to relatives outside the country.
Human-rights groups and liberal Israelis have argued that Israel—as a country established as a refuge for the survivors of the Nazi genocide—has a moral obligation to absorb asylum seekers.
"We are welcoming the high court decision. We expect the state to start releasing the 2,000 people who are still in detention,'' said Ran Cohen, a spokesman for the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights.
"We expect this decision [will] make the Israeli government re-evaluate how it handles asylum seekers," who Mr. Cohen says now, instead of being detained, should have access to health care and welfare and an opportunity to integrate into Israeli society.
The reaction of Africans in Tel Aviv, where most asylum seekers from the continent live, was upbeat, but not enthusiastic.
"Sure, it's good, but what difference will it make?" asked Walta Tesfai, a 30-year-old Eritrean who has lived in Israel for 31Ž2 years after crossing into the country illegally from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
"You have people still in prison, like criminals, their wife is outside, their kids are outside. Some sign papers saying they will to go back to Eritrea because they would rather die," than be incarcerated. Mr. Tesfai, who worked in a hospital in Eritrea, added: "It's hard for a refugee here. You cannot send money home; you cannot work."
Write to Joel Millman at joel.millman@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared September 17, 2013, on page A18 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Court Ruling Aids Africans in Israel.
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