Danon proposes bill to expel migr... JPost - Diplomacy & Politics

Danon proposes bill to expel migrants

By GIL HOFFMAN06/12/2012 12:04

MK Regev calls situation in south TA a "national emergency" at Knesset lobby meeting on African migrant issue.

Half of Israel's 70,000 African migrants would have to be expelled within a year and all within three years, according to a bill that the head of the Knesset's anti-migrant lobby, MK Danny Danon (Likud), vowed to pass Tuesday.

Speaking at a meeting of his lobby at the Knesset attended by residents of South Tel Aviv, Danon said he would propose the bill soon unless the cabinet took serious soon to start expelling the migrants en masse.

According to the proposal, Israel would pay African countries to absorb the migrants. Until their expulsion, they would be kept in camps outside Israeli population centers where they would be fed, clothed and given medical treatment, but not permitted to work in the country. Renting apartments to the migrants would be forbidden by law.

"We cannot let them bring Africa to Israel," Danon said. "I've been to South Sudan. "It's a country you can live in."

Speaking as immigration authorities have been rounding up and arresting South Sudanese in preparation of their impending deportation, Danon complained about what he called "crybaby reports" about the migrants who are being forced to leave the country.

Danon said Eritrean ambassador to Israel Tesfamariam Tekeste told him there was a neighborhood in his country that has been nicknamed Tel Aviv because it was built with money sent home by workers in Israel.

MK Miri Regev (Likud), who last month called Africans in Israel "a cancer," was greeted like royalty by Jewish South Tel Aviv residents at the Knesset. She called the situation there where many migrants have moved a national emergency.

"The country has been captured by migrants on foot," she complained. "Anyone who crosses border must be put in jail for three years. Then they will stop coming."

Regev came to the event accompanied by Yaakov, an Ethiopian Jew who works at a factory in Kiryat Malachi. Yaakov said 170 Eritrean migrants were hired in place of Israelis, because the migrants were willing to work 21 hours a day.

Doron Ezra, the head of the state police union, said only 130 inspectors were employed nationwide to arrest illegal migrants during the day and only a few at night. Danon called for the staff of inspectors to be increased five-fold.

The ambassadors from Ghana and the Ivory Coast were present at the discussion but declined to address the room in any language other than French. Because no French-speaking interpreters were found, they did not end up speaking.