Story by Loveday Morris Photos by Corinna Kern MARCH 5, 2018 TEL AVIV
Alam Godin fled to Israel as a boy, escaping war in Sudan more than a decade ago with his family. His mother and four younger siblings call home a squat, gray, two-bedroom bungalow in a downtrodden section of Tel Aviv.
Now, he’s among thousands of African men who could be given a choice by the Israeli government: Take $3,500 to relocate to an unnamed “third country” — widely reported to be Uganda or Rwanda — go back to their home country, or go to jail.
Israel began handing out the first deportation orders to Africans earlier this year. The government is scheduled next month to relocate the first of 38,000 Sudanese and Eritrean migrants, who entered Israel illegally in many cases more than six years ago. Israel had said it wouldn’t deport women and children — for now.
For hundreds like Godin, who have graduated from the Israeli education system, speak Hebrew and know little of their home countries, a deportation order could turn their lives upside down. They are Israel’s “dreamers.”
“We have to keep them,” urged Eli Nechama, a Tel Aviv school principal who is campaigning on their behalf. “They will be amazing, amazing citizens here in Israel.”
Nechama is spearheading a campaign to prevent deportations of graduates from Israeli schools, hoping to also secure them a permanent status in the country. There are estimated to be 5,000 Sudanese and Eritrean children in the country, and around 600 graduates.
The parallels with the immigration debate in the United States — and, in particular, the undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children now known as “dreamers” — are not lost on Nechama.
“When you ask the kids here, when they first come, what they want to be, these kids don’t dream,” he said. “Let them dream.”
The deportation plan has prompted an acrimonious and emotional debate in Israel. The government and supporters of the plan brand the African migrants as “infiltrators” illegally in the country seeking employment rather than fleeing violence. They say they are burdening southern Tel Aviv.
“We do what we are required to do by law, which is to take care of those who are seen by our law as being in danger,” said Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, adding those who are not should be deported. “As wise men have taught us: ‘Take care of the poor in your city before taking care of the poor in other cities.’”
Critics however, say the plan conflicts with the values of a Jewish state built by refugees fleeing persecution and that the government has not properly considered asylum requests. Holocaust survivors and pilots from the national airline are among those who have spoken out against the plan…
A lot of these stories are heartbreaking and remind me of the stories of refugee children from Eritrea and South Sudan right here in my home state. We all need to do better and fight harder for these children.
Raised and schooled in Israel, these young Africans could be sent back to a country they do not know
Water Witches 