The Israeli government maintains that most of the illegals who infiltrated from Africa came in order to better their lives economically and not because they are fleeing persecution.
By World Israel News Staff
Transportation Minister Betzalel Smotrich took to Twitter on Wednesday to express his opinion of the best way to cope with Israel’s illegal immigrants.
“Creeping citizenship is a bad thing that will not happen on my watch. The solution for illegal infiltrators is to return them to their country of origin, period. In the meantime, anyone who goes against the law has to be dealt with by enforcement, infiltrator and citizen alike,” Smotrich wrote.
Smotrich was responding to a Wednesday news report from Army Radio that claimed the Transportation Ministry is working on a regulated identification system that would provide illegal immigrants the ability to take a driving theory test for electric bicycles.
The problem of illegal African migrants is a hot issue in the Jewish State.
From 2005 until 2012, a massive wave of African illegal immigrants from Eritrea and Sudan entered the country. After Israel built the Sinai barrier in 2012, the number of illegal migrants attempting to enter the country dropped significantly. Since then, Israel has been struggling with what to do with those already in the country.
According to the Interior Ministry, there are an estimated 38,000 Sudanese and Eritrean illegals living in Israel. A 2018 Israel Police crime data report revealed that Eritrean and Sudanese illegals commit disproportionately more crimes in comparison to the general population.
Most of them are seeking asylum in Israel and claim that if returned to their homelands, their lives would be in danger. However, the government maintains that most of them came in order to better their lives economically, not because they are fleeing persecution, and that every country has the right to uphold its immigration laws.
A poll published by the Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI) and Tel Aviv University in 2018 shows that two-thirds of the Israeli population support deportation.
Despite this, Israel’s Supreme Court is refusing to allow the state to incarcerate those who entered the country illegally or to deport them unless they go willingly and if the country receiving them is safe.
Those who oppose deportation argue that since the nations of the world turned their backs on Jews who were trying to flee the Holocaust, the Jewish state has a moral obligation to accept these refugees.