News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) Hadera city officials spoke out on Monday in defense of the expulsion of 22 Sudanese refugees from the city.  The refugees were employed in a local orchard until Friday, when city inspectors decided that they were illegally employed under “slave-like” conditions.  The refugees were then taken to Jerusalem, where they were dropped off in the city’s Liberty Bell Park.

Hadera officials admitted that they were motivated in part by fears that if 22 refugees were accepted in the city and found work, more refugees would follow.  The city of Hadera has already accepted many poverty-stricken new immigrants, officials explained, and an influx of refugees would only worsen the situation.  A recent Jewish Agency plan to bring hundreds of African refugees to the city was cancelled due to opposition from the city council, which argued that the city was facing economic collapse, and did not have the necessary budget to absorb refugees.