Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israel Scrambles as Court Axes Law Aimed at African Immigrants

The High Court of Justice’s decision Monday to overturn a year-old law allowing African migrants to be held without trial for up to three years caught Israeli officials by surprise. Government ministries that will be affected by the ruling began studying the decision immediately, and will continue to examine its implications for a number of days.

The next step will be to find an alternative that will allow the government to maintain its policies regarding migrants and asylum seekers without resort to the amendment to the Anti-Infiltration Law that has been declared unconstitutional.

The High Court gave the state 90 days to examine the cases of some 1,750 African migrants who are being held in Israel. These reviewed are to be carried out on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with the Entry into Israel Law of Entry rather than the Anti-Infiltration Law.

The Entry into Israel Law allows individuals who entered Israel illegally to be detained for up to 60 days, unless a deportation proceeding is under way. If there is no other justification extending the detention, the individuals must be released.

Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that Monday’s ruling, on the face of it, would detract from Israel’s ability to deal with illegal infiltration into its territory. He said that alternatives to the discredited legislation would be examined.

For more go to Haaretz

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.