Israel Will Hire Civilians to Capture African Migrants and Refugees

Israel will offer a cash reward to civilians who sign up to become “immigration inspectors” with the government unit that oversees the deportation of the country’s large asylum and refugee population.

The Population and Immigration Authority, the Israeli government’s immigration ministry, published a job notice last week that invites civilians to apply to become “inspectors” for the agency’s asylum request department. The ministry is offering  “appropriate pay” as well as a bonus that can reach 30,000 Israeli shekels ($8,700).

The ministry says it is looking to hire 100 inspectors by March 2018. Of these, 70 inspectors will be hired for a two-month period to “carry out enforcement tasks against illegal aliens and their employers,” including the need to “locate, detain and monitor illegal persons.” The immigration ministry also wants to hire 40 people to “conduct comprehensive questioning and investigation of asylum seekers,” ostensibly to determine the veracity of their claims.

The notice calls for high school education and notes that experience in combat or security is a plus.

The Israeli government says that there are 38,043 African migrants living in the country, most of them hailing from war-torn countries such as Eritrea and South Sudan, having illegally crossed the Israeli border between 2007 and 2012.

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According to Hareetz, the Israeli Interior Ministry “estimates the total cost of its deportation operation at some 300 million shekels ($86 million) a year. This includes wages of Interior Ministry employees, deportation flights, and money given to those who leave.”

Netanyahu has defended the decision to remove asylum seekers from Israel.

“Every country must monitor its borders,” he told reporters earlier this week. “Maintaining the borders from illegal infiltration is both a right and a basic duty of a sovereign state.”

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