Opportunities to work are rare and the fear of returning home constant
TEL AVIV – It’s 2 p.m. on a Sunday in Tel Aviv. The sun is shining on the cerulean sea while an ocean breeze is gently kissing beachgoers. Not too distant from the heart of Tel Aviv’s lavish lifestyle sits the Central Bus Station, a hub through which to bounce from one city to the next for those lucky enough to hold Israeli citizenship or a traveler’s visa. For those lacking this luxury, the Central Bus Station becomes a destination; a place where the unfortunate are dumped and left to wander the streets of south Tel Aviv in fear and uncertainty.
Many of these people have traveled treacherous lengths, spending days or weeks crossing the desolate Sahara Desert motivated by the hope of protection and refuge when they reach the Jewish state. If successful in crossing Israel’s border at all, and asking for asylum, most will quickly discover that they are no less unwanted here than they were in their native lands — primarily Eritrea or Sudan – as they are left to loiter in Levinsky Park, littering the brown, dying grass with their dying dreams. In Israel, these 47,000 asylum seekers are known as infiltrators.
A few blocks from Levinsky Park is the headquarters for the Hotline for Refugees and Migrant Workers. The office is bustling on this afternoon as Sundays are the start of the workweek in Israel. Refugees and volunteers sit facing each other on either side of the desks, strategizing their next moves while telephones ring incessantly. The smell of freshly brewed coffee hangs in the air accompanied by a sense of urgency and resilience. These refugees know their time is limited.
“I have a B-1 visa which only gives me the chance to work,” Aaron, who feared using his real name, told The Media Line. He came to Israel in 2007 via Ethiopia after leaving his home in Eritrea. “I have to renew my visa every two months, and I don’t know what will happen after the two months. I have to live with fear.”
Aaron is one of the lucky ones who was legally given the right to work, and he utilizes the privilege by serving as an activist, community coordinator and translator at the Hotline. But he says fewer than 1,000 refugees are given this visa. The majority receive a Conditional Release visa, also known as the “2(a)5 permit,” which protects them from deportation but does not allow the permit holder to work or receive social benefits. This visa also allows the government to detain them at any time, for any reason, indefinitely.
Still others are not given any documentation at all, regardless of how many times they have filed for it. Though the government explicitly denies them the right to work – a detrimental decision not only for the people but the surrounding community, the activists argue – many find work regardless, having found a loophole to work via a middle man.
“There are companies that know the system well and know the government cannot punish them even if they employ these people,” Aaron explained. “There was a decision from the court to not punish, but it’s not a legal announcement or an official announcement. Just an internal decision.”
Aaron says a middle man can help refugees find employers willing to hire them for basic jobs Israelis don’t want, like dish cleaners or construction workers. But, he says, working within the private business sector is difficult because some employers are still afraid of the repercussions if the government finds out they’re hiring illegal workers. He says that while most businesses in Tel Aviv are aware that they can hire asylum seekers with little fear of consequences, not many elsewhere know about the lack of reinforcement and that prevents refugees from looking inside of Israel’s other cities for work.
Another factor confining the refugees to Tel Aviv is the visa renewal process. Until last year, visas could be renewed in nearly 20 offices around the country, including almost any branch of the interior ministry. The numbers now have drastically diminished.
“Last year it changed to three places they could go to renew their visa,” Anat Ovadia, spokesperson for the Hotline for Refugees and Migrant Workers, told The Media Line. “Then they made it seven and now they reduced it to three again. It’s really a bureaucratic abuse.”
Underscoring the point, Ovadia said that only one center not located in Tel Aviv is open every day during the workweek, causing excessive lines which results in not everyone being taken care of.
“People sometimes wait for 8 hours and then they still don’t manage to get into the center,” Ovadia continued. “So they have to go home but they don’t have any paper that says they started the procedure. So now they are in danger of being arrested or fired because the employee missed the whole day of work. Also, maybe their landlord will kick them out because now they don’t have a visa. Everything is so fragile.” If, after the two-month period their visa is not renewed, he or she is summoned to Holot, a detention center surrounded by nothing but the Negev desert near Egypt’s border.
Holot opened in December 2013 as a solution for dealing with refugees whose visa requests have been turned down and asylum applications denied. Unlike refugee camps in other countries typically run by social workers, the Israeli facility is under the aegis of the Israel Prison Service. Surrounded by a 10-foot razor-wire fence, the center, an “open facility,” presently holds 1,900 refugees. Although they are not prisoners, they are subjected to frequent body searches, nightly roll calls, interrogations and little to look forward to.
“Most people don’t wake up until 11 or so because we have nothing to do,” Teshume, a 54-year old native Eritrean told The Media Line by telephone from Holot. “We just walk around if it’s a sunny day and wait for lunch. Very few people study English. But we teach each other. Otherwise we don’t do anything at all. It’s boring and we do nothing. There’s nothing to do. At dinner we’ll go around Holot just to move around. Some people will walk a few kilometers away but then they must come back for roll call.”
The bleak meals they look forward to are usually just rice but, according to Teshume, on one of the rare good days they also get eggs. Often times, detainees try and smuggle in tomatoes or onions.
“The food here is bad so you have to provide for yourself,” Teshume explained. “People will buy white flour and they’ll hide it outside Holot. Then you only need hot water and you can make porridge.”
Detainees are searched every time they enter and exit the facility. Water is the only item that can be brought in, though ice is prohibited.
“We have asylum seekers in Holot which is literally a prison,” Oscar Oliver, spokesperson and community organizer at the African Refugee Development Center in Tel Aviv, told The Media Line. Oliver left Congo seeking refuge in Israel in 1994. “We have them in prison while they haven’t committed any offense to the Israeli law.” Oliver says with the elections and change in government earlier this year, this situation is only going to get worse.
“The government which had sent asylum seekers to this prison previously was a balanced government between right and left,” Oliver said. “Now that government is out and we have a new government which is from the right to the extreme right. So there is a change and a change in a worse way.”
One of the harsher tactics the government has issued is threatening to send asylum seekers to prison if they don’t “volunteer” to return to Africa. With “voluntary return,” the Israeli government sends these refugees to a third country like Rwanda or Uganda along with a sum of money equivalent to about $3500.
The African Refugee Development Center’s operational manager Naomi Caplan told The Media Line, “they’ve always encouraged ‘voluntary return’ since we can’t deport these people because either we don’t have relations with those countries or it’s a UN humanitarian issue.” She says she’s unsure if they’ll follow through with it or if it’s merely a scare tactic.
Despite multiple attempts to reach Knesset members familiar with the issue and representatives from the interior ministry, no one was available to comment on these claims.
According to the activists who spoke to The Media Line, one major problem with the voluntary return approach is that there is no legal documentation that proves the status of these refugees or guarantees their safety. According to numerous reports from those who have left on voluntary return, once they arrive in Rwanda, their money and legal documents are taken, forcing them to illegally cross the border to Uganda.
TALIA J. MEDINA is a student journalist with The Media Line