High court ruling challenges Israel over illegal immigrants

Israel’s supreme court disqualified Monday as unconstitutional a law permitting illegal immigrants to be held for three years without trial. The law was enacted to stem the flow of some 2,000 illegal immigrants that were pouring into Israel every month through Egyptian Sinai, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea. Many settled in Tel Aviv and other big Israeli cities. The flow declined last year when Prime Minister, who called them a threat to national security, built a fence along the Egyptian border and looked for an African country to absorb them.