Most don’t have health insurance or jobs
Jack Adamissa, 31, got on line early this morning at the Holot detention center to be processed for his release after 19 months. Six hours later he was finally free to go, having been given $15, a sandwich, and a two-month visa to live in Israel legally. He was also warned that he cannot move to Tel Aviv or Eilat, the two cities with the largest concentrations of asylum seekers.
“I’m on a bus to Jerusalem,” Adamissa told The Media Line today soon after his release. “I’m not sure where I’m going to sleep tonight. I used to live in Jerusalem so I know the city well, but everyone I knew there has been arrested.”
Adamissa is one of almost 1200 asylum seekers who are being freed this week after Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that asylum seekers could not be held at Holot for longer than a year. Holot is an “open” detention facility in southern Israel, meaning residents can come and go but must be present for twice-daily roll calls. In effect, that kept them confined to the area of the detention facility, as there are no cities in proximity.
Adamissa, who speaks fluent English, fled Darfour in 2003 and spent five years in Khartoum before illegally crossing the border into Israel. He spent several years working as a cleaner at a Jerusalem health clinic before being arrested and sent to Holot. Now, after 19 months in detention, he has no job, no money and no health insurance. While all Israeli citizens received medical insurance, foreign workers usually get insurance through their employers. Adamissa said that several Israeli manpower companies were waiting outside Holot with job offers, and some men who had no place to go accepted. He said he would rather find a job himself in Jerusalem.
Israeli officials said they released the detainees in accordance with the High Court decision and they were not to blame for the confusion surrounding the issue. Sabine Haddad, the spokeswoman for the Israeli Interior Ministry, said there are a total of 45,000 “infiltrators” in Israel. Until now there were 1765 detainees in Holot, with 1178 due to be released this week.
Haddad defended the decision not to allow those being released to live in Tel Aviv or Eilat. Especially in Tel Aviv, there have been tensions between residents of south Tel Aviv who say the “infiltrators” have brought an increase in crime including the rapes of several young women.
“There is already a concentration of tens of thousands there, and we want to make it easier for the residents of those areas,” Haddad told The Media Line. “We want the infiltrators to be spread out.”
But activists in the asylum seeker community say that Tel Aviv has become the center of life for many refugees and the new rule will make their lives much harder.
“Tel Aviv is where their whole support system is,” Yael Orgal, executive board member of the Jerusalem African Community Center (JACC) told The Media Line. “The refugees had no time to prepare for their release. Now everything is in complete chaos.”
The refugee problem has become an increasing phenomenon all over the world. Macedonia recently declared a state of emergency as tens of thousands of migrants threatened to overwhelm the small country. Many thousands have been imprisoned all over Europe.
The number of migrants trying to enter Israel has dropped dramatically in recent years, partly due to new security measures and a barrier between Israel and the Sinai Peninsula. Those who came in the past, however, have a murky legal status. According to international law, Israel cannot compel them to return to their home countries of Sudan or Eritrea, where they are likely to be persecuted or in the case of Eritrea, drafted into the army.
Israel has encouraged the asylum seekers to agree to be sent to a third country, either Uganda or Rwanda, and has offered generous incentives to leave. However refugees who have left have reported back that conditions in these countries are difficult, and few have agreed to leave Israel recently.
The refugees in Israel are given a special two or three month visa which recognizes their presence in Israel but does not allow them to work. At the same time, Israel has not prosecuted the asylum seekers or their employers for hiring them.
“Instead of organizing a proper procedure to consider individual cases and grant refugee status, Israel tries to deter future waves of migrants from coming,” Jean-Marc Liling, a lawyer who specializes in refugee law at Assaf, a refugee aid organization told The Media Line. “It wants to make anyone who is already here feel unwelcome and make their stay as uncomfortable as possible.”
He said that Israel is dragging its feet on responding to requests for asylum and refugee status. A government report from earlier this year found that Israel has recognized only four asylum seekers, less than one percent of those who had applied.
Jack Adamissa said he applied almost two years ago, and has not been given a response. But he is not giving it much thought. He is much more concerned with finding a place to sleep and a way to make a living now that he is no longer in detention.