NCDH 609, McGill University Faculty of Law —
In this talk, Reuven Ziegler explores the precarious status of Eritrean and Sudanese nationals in Israel. Having crossed the Israeli-Egyptian border without authorisation and not through an official border crossing, Israeli law defines such individuals as ‘infiltrators’, a charged term which dates back to border-crossings into Israel by Palestinian Fedayeen in the 1950s. Eritreans and Sudanese nationals constitute over 90 percent of ‘infiltrators’ in Israel. Their livelihood is curtailed through hostility, sanctions, and detention, while Israel refrains from deporting them to their respective countries of origin, recognising that such forced removal could expose them to risks to their lives and/or freedom. The talk argues that the regularisation of asylum in Israel, including legal recognition of ‘refugee’, ‘asylum-seeker’, and ‘beneficiary of subsidiary protection’ statuses, is long due.
Based on a forthcoming article to appear in the Journal of Immigration Asylum and Nationality Law.