Trapped in Limbo – New Report by The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants
A new report by the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants reveals the State of Israel’s methods for avoiding the examination of justified requests for political asylum.
The report, “Trapped in Limbo”, named for a quote from Supreme Court President Justice Hayut on this matter, brings together the latest information regarding the examination of asylum applications from Eritrean and Sudanese citizens as of September 2020.
The report details the various ways in which the State has deliberately refrained from reviewing worthy asylum applications: from denying access to the asylum system, to a publicly espoused policy of only reviewing applications of individuals from countries without group protection in Israel (i.e. Ukraine, Georgia, Sri Lanka, etc.) who may be deported back to their home countries, to the arguments provided by the State to the High Court in an attempt to justify its failure to check asylum claims for individuals from Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile regions of Sudan.
Our study reveals that in many other countries, the activity of the asylum system is enshrined in law, including caps on the amount of time it may take to decide each individual asylum claim. In Israel, on the other hand, the length of time for examining applications is not even regulated in the Population and Immigration Authority’s internal work procedures.
The report includes personal testimonies of an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo who has been awaiting a decision on her application for the past 20 years, an asylum seeker from Sudan who has been waiting 14 years for a decision on his application, and a recognized refugee from Eritrea who only this year – 8 years after submitting his application – was informed that he had been officially recognized as a refugee.
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