Nearly all Jewish US House members pen letter to Netanyahu over asylum seekers

Eighteen Jewish Democrats out of 21 in the US House of Representatives write to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say they are “dismayed” and “disappointed” over his retreat from a plan that replaced his earlier proposal to deport tens of thousands of African migrants from Israel.

The letter says the lawmakers were “heartened” on April 2 when they learned that Netanyahu had worked out a plan with the United Nations to process half of the migrants through regularized refugee channels only to hear within hours that he had reversed himself.

“We were dismayed to hear that the agreement had been suspended, then canceled, leaving the Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers in limbo, with no clear next step,” says the letter sent Monday and initiated by four of the top Jewish lawmakers: New York Democrat Nita Lowey, the top Democratic appropriator; New York Democrat Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Florida Democrat Ted Deutch, the top Democrat on the House Middle East subcommittee; and Michigan Democrat Sander Levin, the longest-serving Jewish member of Congress.

The lawmakers said they were writing as Jewish Congress members and also on behalf of their constituents; the majority of the lawmakers represent districts with substantive Jewish communities.

Netanyahu dropped the UN plan after coming in for several hours of lacerating criticism from right-wingers in Israel, including in his own government.

— JTA