An appeals court that deals with Interior Ministry decisions handed down a ruling this week that laid out the factual and legal points of the case of Eritrean citizens who enter Israel illegally, whom government possibility allows to say in Israel as part of a group defense known as a policy of "non-deportation."
The court reviewed the policy and noted that Israel has one of the highest illegal migration rates in the world, and is the destination of some 50% of the Eritreans who leave their country.
The policy of non-deportation applies to citizens of Eritrea and Sudan and differentiates between them and the rest of the asylum-seekers in Israel. In practice, an Eritrean or Sudani whose personal request for asylum has been rejected can remain in Israel. This is a wide-ranging benefit that has not gone unnoticed by illegal migrants from other places who pretend to be from Eritrea.
The non-deportation policy is a temporary decision by the government not to deport people who cannot return to their countries of origin because they identify as members of a certain group. Under the policy, they are not recognized as refugees, and the state does not recognize them as the victims of political persecution. The policy was supposed to be a temporary measure until a permanent policy could be put in place, but it has been in effect for a number of years.
This causes a number of serious problems, including the lack of ability to take action on criminal behavior among Eritrean migrants, unlike other illegal migrants, who are arrested and deported if they are involved in any crime. The ruling from the Interior Ministry appeals court reviews a number of serious criminal incidents involving Eritreans. Once the Eritreans served their time, the government was unable to deport them. The ruling quotes police reports and Knesset debates in which experts participated and presents a difficult picture of a situation in which there is no way of punishing Eritrean migrants. Therefore, they are undeterred and are increasingly involved in crime.
The ruling deals with the case of one Eritrean man who evaded military service in Eritrea because of the harsh punishments and service conditions. A court determined that evading military service was not sufficient grounds for granting refugee status and that the conditions and punishments were unrelated to the asylum-seeker's background. Despite the court's decision, the non-deportation policy will most likely keep the asylum-seeker in Israel indefinitely.
The appeals court pointed out various ways of changing the non-deportation policy. First of all, the recently signed peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which ends the war between the two nations and cancels unlimited military conscription there, changes things in that region. Second, the court summarized a European Union report which concluded that an Eritrean who left Eritrea illegally would be in no danger upon return, and would merely be subject to a fine. Third, the court quoted a final ruling from the Swiss Federal Court that ordered the deportation of an Eritrean woman who had evaded military service on the grounds that draft-dodgers in her circumstances were not put at risk by returning to Eritrea. The Swiss ruling covered the facts about military service in Eritrea and the punishment for deserters or draft-dodgers and concluded that there was no basis to prevent illegal migrants from Eritrea from being deported to their native country.
Given the in-depth coverage of the matter, only some of which is cited here, the appeals court called on the government to look at the changes that have taken place and adopt a new policy of deporting illegal Eritrean migrants to their native country. The time has come.
