Israel Netanyahu: Time to increase deportation of African migrants

Netanyahu was discussing an initiative announced last week by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Interior Minister Arye Deri to close Holot, an “open” detention center.

In the years leading up to 2012, a flood of African migrants crossed into Israel illegally, at one point reaching around 64,000.
Netanyahu said that the state had already carried out the first two prongs of its strategy: stopping the flow of new migrants by building a wall on the Egyptian border and forcing out over 20,000 migrants who had been inside Israel.

The third stage of deporting migrants at an increased pace, he said, “can be carried out thanks to an international agreement which I obtained which allows us to deport the 40,000 remaining infiltrators against their will.”

“This is very important. This will allow us to empty the Holot Detention Center in the future and to redirect portions of the large resources we are using there from guarding” the migrants to other needs of the state.

Netanyahu was discussing an initiative announced last week by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Interior Minister Arye Deri to close Holot, an “open” detention center where a few thousand migrants have been sent to try to convince them to '''self-deport.''

[link to www.jpost.com]