Africans migrants protest Israel detention law

May the Almighty God deliver Africans from the anomaly of being illegal immigrants in other people's country as a controversial law in Israel allows authorities to detain people without valid visas for up to three years.

With the increase in detention and as much as 300 Africans detained in the last three weeks after the detention law was implemented by the Israeli Parliament, Africans have been targets of police. However, on Sunday about 10,000 African migrants protested the detention law allowing Israel to detain people without proper documentation. Many of the demonstrators held banners demanding the release of fellow migrants who were jailed for being in the country illegally.  

Over 60,000 migrants have crossed into Israel since 2006 across an Egypt border, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. Many live in poor areas of Tel Aviv and are seeking asylum in the country. Israeli authorities see these African migrants as threat to their national security and social fabric.

Migrants who are arrested are taken to a facility, in which detainees can leave during the day but must report back by nightfall. Migrants can be held there indefinitely pending voluntary repatriation, implementation of deportation order or the resolution of their asylum requests. Many migrants who take refuge in Israel are fleeing from war or persecution in their countries of origin, but very few are granted official refugee status by the government. Many live on temporary visas and subsist on menial jobs.

Hotline for Migrant Workers, an organisation that advocates for Africans, accuses Israel of pressuring hundreds in its jails to accept payouts and leave. More than left for Eritrea earlier this year, having won release from prison.

The poverty in Africa is so much that our very best brains have fled to search for greener pastures abroad. Unfortunately the governments have not  helped with their .unfriendly policies and corruption.

Please share your African stories on life abroad and leave a comment.

Hope for two Nigerian students in Canada facing deportation

Reprieve is coming the way of two Nigerian students as the Canadian Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney look to adjust international student regulations so that the two University of Regina student be allowed to remain in the country.

The proposed new changes include allowing foreign student to work part-time off campus without a work permit, which is what the two Nigerian students Victoria Ordu and Ihuoma Amadi were caught doing in 2011(Amadi was working full-time).  Both were ordered to leave Canada for one year, but have instead been hiding out in Regina churches since last year.

The students legal counsel, Kay Adebogun, with support from a parliamentarian, MP Ralph Goodale, has argued that that if the rules governing off-campus work are relaxed, Amadi and Ordu should be allowed to remain and return to school.

However, further complicating the situation for the Nigerian students is the fact that Ordu's student visa expired in December, while Amadi's visa is good until April 2013.
Both students acknowledged they broke the law, they however maintain they did not know they needed a work permit to work off campus at Walmart.

In another twist, Phillippe Couvrette, a spokesperson with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), said Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews is the one to grant the reprieve for Amadi and Orlu, and not Kenney.

Protesters shout slogans from inside Nigerian embassy in Berlin

Asylum seekers of Nigerian extraction in Germany were stunned on Monday as German police stormed the embassy premises in Berlin to arrest protesters.

Protesters were protesting against Nigeria's Government collaboration with German officials in deporting them.
 
The protesters shouted slogans from inside the Nigerian embassy. Police detained 14 protesters who briefly occupied the Nigerian embassy, a police spokesman reported on Monday.

"We protest against the Nigerian embassy's involvement in the deportation of refugees to countries that are not safe." one of the protesters said.

All of the detained men were asylum seekers, a representative of the refugees said

Two Nigerian student escapes deportation, Immigration officers probed

Two Nigerian student who are being deported for misusing their student visas in Malaysia escaped on Thursday morning after one of two Immigration officers who were escorting the Nigerians for deportation claimed seven unknown men had used forced to free the two when he had stopped the van carrying the men at a petrol station near the airport.

The two Immigration officers had been placed under immediate suspension pending investigations.

KLIA Immigration Depot director Datuk Mohmed Asri Yusof said the two Immigraiont officers had taken the Nigerians to the airport together with a Palestinian, who was also to be deported.

He said one of the officers then escorted the Palestinian into the airport at 12.15am to check his flight home while the Nigerians remained in the van with the other officer as their flights was only scheduled for 2.55am.

However when the first officer returned after seeing off the Palestinian he found that his colleague had driven the van, with the Nigerians still inside, to a Petronas station nearby, supposedly to purchase some drinks.

"Fifteen minutes later the second officer contacted his colleague, who was still at the airport, to say he had been stopped by seven African men who had used force to free the two Nigerians before handcuffing him to the steering wheel," he told a press conference after attending the National Registration Department Innovation Day launch on Thursday.

The second officer lodged a police report on the incident at 1.30am while the first officer lodged his report at about 3.30am.

The two Nigerians, Solomon Udo Eneh and Osuji Chinedu, were being deported after they were found to have abused their student visas.

Yusof appealed to the public to report anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant to the police.

Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam told the same press conference that the ministry was keen to know how the two Nigerians, who were handcuffed, managed to escape.

The ministry, he said, also wanted to identify any weaknesses in the escorting procedures that might have led to the incident.

He said the ministry was currently also working on tightening the standard operating procedure in escorting, transporting and deporting foreigners.

"The Immigration Department's Flying Squad has launched a manhunt together with the police and I believe we will be able to find them," he said.