Deportation of South Sudanese is legal, ministry says

Deporting South Sudanese refugee seekers living in Israel would not violate international law and thus is a legitimate option for the government to use, according to a Foreign Ministry document leaked to the press this week. However, ministry officials said Tuesday they were merely exploring the question from a legal angle and did not actually recommend the government expel any South Sudanese.

According to an internal report, parts of which were published by Haaretz on Tuesday, the ministry said the government should investigate the individual situation of each South Sudanese to determine whether deportation would threaten the person’s life. Before moving anyone to dangerous areas in the African country, the Israeli authorities should obtain updated information from the ministry, the brief reportedly suggests.

According to the Interior Ministry, there are more than 2,000 South Sudanese asylum seekers currently in the country, while refugee assistance groups insist the number about 700. Since the South Sudanese are not recognized by the state as refugees and Jerusalem has good diplomatic relations with the government in Juba, the new country’s capital, the Interior Ministry in February suddenly stopped renewing visas to South Sudanese. After human rights groups petitioned a Jerusalem court, it issued a temporary order preventing the ministry from proceeding with the planned deportations.

The Foreign Ministry thinks there is no obligation in international law to grant asylum for socioeconomic reasons

The court asked the state to present its arguments by June 3. The leaked report presents the Foreign Minister’s standpoint. Other government bodies are likewise submitting their viewpoints on the matter to the National Security Council, which will formulate the state’s position before the scheduled court discussion.

“The Foreign Ministry thinks there is no obligation in international law to grant asylum for socioeconomic reasons, but rather if the financial and social situation in the country is so bad that it causes the asylum seekers to be risking their lives or can be classified as cruel, inhuman or degrading,” the report reads, according to Haaretz.

However, the ministry adds that individuals should be deported only after their individual cases are examined in detail, “to make sure [their] return to South Sudan adheres to the principle of not returning to danger,” the paper reports.

The report recommends Israel coordinate the deportation of asylum seekers with the South Sudanese Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and work toward “promoting cooperation with international aid organizations or Israeli groups in South Sudan to maintain contact with deportees.”

A Foreign Ministry official told The Times of Israel that the report was written by the ministry’s legal department after coordinating with Israel’s ambassador to a number of African nations, Dan Shacham, who recently visited South Sudan to ascertain whether the situation was safe for asylum seekers to be returned to their home country.

Humanitarian groups in Israel said they were dismayed by the ministry’s report.

“We request that the Israeli authorities take into consideration the deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in South Sudan,” said Orit Marom, advocacy coordinator at Assaf — Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel. “We’re talking about people who haven’t been back to South Sudan in 10 or 20 years; some of them have never actually lived there. To deport them without any preparation, to just drop them off in Juba without anyone in South Sudan to properly absorb them is utterly irresponsible.”

The overwhelmingly Christian South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan last year, is on the brink of war with the Arab-Muslim regime in Khartoum as tensions between the two countries are rising.

‘We need more time to a) ascertain the situation on the ground in South Sudan and b) to prepare the asylum seekers here to return. Who can get ready to leave their house within a few months?’

“If deported, asylum seekers may be exposed to grave dangers — from internecine fighting, famine, and lack of basic services like health care and water,” a spokesman for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, or ACRI, told The Times of Israel recently, adding that women and children would be especially at risk. “Other countries have taken note of these conditions — the United States has extended collective protection for South Sudanese refugees until May 2013.”

The president of the Eilat-based South Sudan Organization for Development, Moses Gadia, told The Times of Israel that he and his fellow asylum-seekers are happy to finally have their own country and are keen on helping to build it.

“But if I go now, where will I put my children? South Sudan was closed [off] for 40 years. There’s nothing there. It’s a jungle,” asserted Gadia, who arrived here in 2006. “As a father, I’d be happy to take my children to a place where they start their lives. I’m not even talking about schools, just for them not to stay under a tree.”

Many of the South Sudanese who crossed Sudan and Egypt to seek refuge in Israel have already returned home, Assaf’s Marom said. “Those who remained are the most vulnerable who need special support. And we strongly believe that a country like South Sudan, which is not even one year old, cannot properly take care of these people.”

The South Sudanese presently residing in Israel wouldn’t be the only citizens brought back to the newborn country, as half a million citizens are being deported from Sudan, she added. “There is a major crisis in the country. With all due respect to Dan Shacham, we are in touch with families that returned to South Sudan and their situation is not good. We need more time to a) ascertain the situation on the ground in South Sudan and b) to prepare the asylum seekers here to return. Who can get ready to leave their house within a few months?”

The issue of African asylum seekers and illegal immigrants is a hotly debated issue in Israel, with far-right politicians continuously agitating for their deportation. “Infiltrators are a national calamity. We need to deport them out of Israel before it is too late,” Deputy Knesset Speaker and Likud MK Danny Danon said Monday. “The Sudanese can return to Sudan, and the rest return to their respective nations in Africa and Eastern Europe. It has been done in the past and must be done again.”

Asked to comment on Danon’s statement, ACRI’s director of citizenship and residency program, Oded Feller, said: “Israel does not deport refugees whose lives are in danger in their countries of origin. To do so would violate a treaty to which Israel is a party.”