'35 foreign minors held in jail for over 60 days'

Hotline for Migrant Workers releases figures reporting jailing of asylum seekers costs state some NIS 20 million per year.

By BEN HARTMAN
Asylum seekers south Tel Aviv 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Asylum seekers south Tel Aviv 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
The jailing of asylum-seekers in Israel costs the state about NIS 20 million per year, according to figures released by the Hotline for Migrant Workers on Monday.
The 1,042 asylum-seekers currently jailed by the state include 35 minors, a number of whom are between the ages of three and 10, the hotline reported.
According to Israeli law, those arrested after illegally entering the state are to be kept in jail for a maximum of 60 days. However, according to the Hotline’s figures, the average comes out to around a year and five months.
One case they revealed Monday was that of a man from Togo who entered Israel illegally in 2004 and has been jailed in Israel ever since.
The figures were released at an event to mark the Jewish New Year held at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center in Tel Aviv.
At the event, about 100 attendees watched a screening of the film Evelyn, which details the story of Evelyn Diaz, a 16-year-old child of a foreign worker from Colombia who was born in Israel and is among hundreds of children of foreign workers who stand to be deported following a cabinet decision made on July 31.
Among other figures released, there are over 300 unidentified detainees in Israel, who reportedly contend that they are from Eritrea or Sudan while the state considers them Ethiopian.
Unlike Ethiopians, Eritreans and Sudanese cannot be deported by Israel because they face persecution in their country of origin.