Law approved last week aims to curb influx of African work migrants into Israel • Under law, fines on employers of illegal workers will increase, infiltrators can be detained for up to three years • Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers visits Negev detention facility: Egypt border fence has not succeeded in reducing number of infiltrators.
Shlomo Cesana

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended a recently approved law that stipulates harsher measures against illegal infiltrators and Israelis who assist them.

The law, approved by Knesset last Tuesday, allows the state to incarcerate illegal immigrants for three years. "This law changes the current reality, in which an infiltrator is detained and two weeks later he is released and then he goes to Eilat or Tel Aviv, or wherever," Netanyahu told ministers at the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday.

The prime minister lauded the law, saying, "This is a welcome and important change. It is essential to our efforts to maintain the character of the state of Israel and to ensure its future as a Jewish and democratic state. In coming days, we will increase the fines imposed on anyone who illegally employs illegal immigrants."

Netanyahu said the new law would not apply to refugees, saying, "These actions are not aimed at refugees, who comprise a negligible percentage of the total number of infiltrators. We're talking about illegal work migrants."

The prime minister announced further that the fence being erected along the border with Egypt in efforts to curb the influx of illegal infiltrators would be completed within 10 months.

He thanked the ministers for their "semi-voluntary" contribution to the effort, referring to a recently agreed budget cut which will affect nearly all the ministries. "Thank you very much," he said. "Thanks to the ministers who contributed, all in all, 6% of the ministries' budgets. It is a significant contribution -- I appreciate it and the people of Israel appreciate it.

Meanwhile, members of the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers visited the Saharonim detention center in the Negev this week and discovered that the portion of the fence completed so far has not deterred infiltrators. The committee heard that there had been no decreased in the number of infiltrators illegally crossing the border from Egypt into Israel since construction on the fence began.