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Israel: Parliament approves detention without charge for African migrants
Migrants detained there will be able to leave the facility during the day but must return at night, and they will not be allowed to seek employment. Women, children and families will not, at this stage, be sent to the complex, which the law stipulates must provide health care and social services.
Critics say the facility is effectively a prison.
Legislators who supported the new law said they were defending the Jewish character of Israel. Opponents called the measure undemocratic.
The government sees the migrants as illegal job-seekers, while rights groups and liberal lawmakers say many are asylum-seekers.
“This law is needed in order to deter potential infiltrators. The present reality is a human ticking timebomb,” coalition lawmaker Miri Regev, head of the Knesset’s Interior Committee, told parliament.
Since the Supreme Court ruling in September, some 700 of the 1,700 migrants under detention have been released from a prison in southern Israel, officials said. The rest are to be transferred to the new “open facility” this week, the Prisons Authority said.
Many African migrants, are working in low-paying jobs as cleaners live in the poorer neighborhoods of Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. Israel has been trying to persuade them to leave voluntarily in return for a payout.
