Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority has rolled out a sweeping expansion of its long-running $3,500 voluntary departure stipend, extending eligibility to nationals of every African country in a targeted push to reverse a notable 20% drop in state-supported migrant departures recorded between 2024 and 2025, per reporting from Haaretz and official agency disclosures. The policy shift, which went into effect this past Monday, will remain active through the end of 2025, with all applications required to be submitted no later than December 31 of this year. Previously, the generous cash grant was restricted to a narrow cohort of African migrants, primarily individuals who had entered Israel through unofficial, non-border crossing points, including citizens of Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, and Guinea, as well as nationals of nations that maintain no formal diplomatic ties with Israel. Under the newly expanded rules, eligibility now covers two additional broad groups: all African nationals who have resided in Israel for two or more years without valid visa documentation, and current holders of temporary residency permits. For the first time ever, the scheme also opens its doors to migrants who originally entered Israel through legal channels but later overstayed their authorized visa terms. Agency officials project the updated criteria will add several thousand more eligible participants to the program, including citizens of populous African nations such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Togo. Official data from the Population and Immigration Authority shows that 3,511 African nationals departed Israel with support from its Voluntary Departure Unit in 2024, a figure that tumbled 20% to just 2,815 in 2025. The authority’s 2025 annual report attributed that sharp decline to a confluence of external barriers: tightened asylum resettlement quotas in Canada, U.S. border policies that largely closed pathways for new asylum applicants, and widespread war-related airspace shutdowns that disrupted regular commercial flight routes for departing migrants. Eritreans accounted for 89% of all African participants in the voluntary departure scheme in 2025, with agency statistics noting that roughly 90% of departing Eritrean and Sudanese migrants opted to resettle in non-African third countries, while only 2% chose to return directly to their countries of origin. The $3,500 stipend amount is identical to the sum offered under a highly contentious 2018 policy rolled out under then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which presented nearly 38,000 mostly Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers with an ultimatum: accept a cash payout, plane ticket, and resettlement in an undisclosed third country, or face immediate administrative detention. That 2018 plan was ultimately scrapped in April of that year, after Netanyahu walked away from a previously negotiated United Nations resettlement agreement. A December 2025 report from the Forum of Refugee and Asylum Seeker Organizations in Israel notes that Israel’s formal refugee recognition rate stands at less than 0.1%, one of the lowest in the developed world. The advocacy forum estimates that roughly 13,000 Eritreans and 6,700 Sudanese currently reside in Israel under formal group protection orders that shield them from forced deportation. In a related policy shift announced in August 2025, Israel’s interior ministry confirmed it would grant temporary residency status to all Sudanese asylum seekers who had submitted their applications by June of that year, a move refugee aid organization HIAS hailed as a direct outcome of sustained, years-long legal advocacy pressure from migrant support groups. Ethiopian asylum seekers, by contrast, have lost all blanket deportation protection: after Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the government’s 2025 decision to revoke their group protection status, authorities began arresting Ethiopian asylum seekers in March 2026, with formal forced deportation operations scheduled to launch in April, per Middle East Eye reporting. Migrant support group Assaf estimates roughly 8,000 Ethiopians in Israel now face imminent deportation, approximately 1,000 of whom are ethnic Tigray residents who fled regional conflict. In a separate enforcement action carried out last June, Israeli police conducted mass arrests of Eritrean residents in Tel Aviv under a 2025 targeted law that authorizes the deportation of any individuals deemed to be supporters of the Eritrean national government.