PM reports to the cabinet that 54 migrants crossed border in October & all were taken into custody- a steep decline from the 2,000 migrants who succeeded monthly in mid-2012.

Israel has stopped the unapproved influx of African migrants across its border with Egypt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday after months of intensive counter-measures on the once porous desert frontier.

An African man being held at the Saharonim detention facility in the Negev, after he was apprehended crossing illegally into Israel from the Sinai. – Photo by Eliyahu Hershkovitz

More than 60,000 African migrants have walked into Israel in recent years, some seeking work and others refuge. They have stirred fear for public order and demographics and prompted the government to build a fortified and closely patrolled fence between Israel and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that 54 migrants crossed the border in October and were all taken into custody- a steep decline from the some 2,000 migrants who came through monthly in mid-2012, many of them settling in Israeli cities.

“Given this figure, we can say explicitly that we have halted the infiltration. And now we have to focus on removing or returning those infiltrators who are already in the territory of Israel to their countries of origin,” the conservative premier said.

Israel considers the vast majority of the migrants to be illegal job-seekers, and in June launched a deportation drive against a few thousand from South Sudan and Ivory Coast. That campaign was fueled by a spree of anti-African street violence.

The bulk of the migrants are from Sudan or Eritrea, and Israel’s ability to expel them is limited. The former country is a Muslim state with no ties to Israel and the latter is deemed a danger zone by humanitarian agencies.

Such agencies say many of the African migrants should be considered for asylum, and some Israelis have been troubled that their country, founded by war refugees and immigrants, should be packing off foreigners en mass.

View original HAARETZ publication at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-israel-has-halted-infiltration-of-african-migrants-1.474291