African Refugees: Asylum-Seekers and Mass Deportations

african refugees: The asylum-seekers, most of them deemed by Israel to be economic migrants rather than refugees in need of protection, can either leave voluntarily for a safe African country and receive 3,500 and a plane ticket, or face imprisonment, according to Toronto Star. The Canadian government is under the gun to resettle 1,845 of the African refugees whose sponsorship applications are currently in process, some for years. Israel is set to begin deporting some 37,000 asylum-seekers, the majority of them Sudanese and Eritreans, in April after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government issued them expulsion notices. Canada does not support policies of mass deportations of asylum-seekers. Article Continued Below As the country that resettles the highest number of African asylum-seekers from Israel, we are in direct contact with the Government of Israel to convey Canada's concerns about the situation. The rights of asylum-seekers and refugees are laid out in the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, of which Israel is a signatory, said Adam Austen, press secretary for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.