There have been a lot of suggestions as to how to deal with the situation of the migrants from Sudan and Eritrea flooding the neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv and elsewhere. The proportions have gotten out of hand.

A law was proposed yesterday that was approved by the ministerial committee (and now it has to go to vote in the Knesset for approval into law) that is meant to resolve the problem.

What attracts these migrants to Israel, among other things, is that there is work available. There is work that others do not want to do and employers have cheap labor by employing these migrants.

MK Ofir Akunis (Likud), with the support of a number of other MKs, proposed a law by which any employer caught employing a migrant illegally will be liable for up to 5 years in prison or liable for a fine of up to 500,000 NIS.

Will this work? Will the threat, if the law should pass, of such a heavy punishment deter employers from [illegally] employing these migrants? It depends on the level of enforcement. Minister Benny Begin, for example, opposed the law. Not because it is a bad law, but because there are already laws that impose punishments and fines on employers illegally employing migrants, but they are not enforced. There is no point in making stricter laws if they too will not be enforced.

This is a law that will be difficult to enforce. The migrants have taken to moving around a lot. Perhaps because there are so many of them, and they are now meeting up with hostility. Instead of staying in packs, they now go off, just a few at a time, and take buses to random cities and walk around looking for work. Immigration officers looking to enforce the law will not just be able to concentrate on a few areas heavily populated by the migrants, but will really have to spread out to the periphery.



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