JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hundreds of African migrants are protesting the Israeli government’s policy of detaining the asylum seekers outside of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem after leaving a detention facility.

About 150 of the migrants spent Monday night at Kibbutz Nachshon near Jerusalem, where they were provided with food and clothing after walking from the Holot detention facility in the Negev desert to Beer Sheva and being brought by volunteers to the kibbutz after immigration officials refused to allow them to board buses for Jerusalem.

They walked from the kibbutz to Jerusalem Tuesday.

Police and government officials have threatened to arrest the protesters if they cause disturbances.

The residence is called an “open facility” with detainees free to leave during the day and with mandatory check-in at night. They are not allowed to hold down jobs.

Nearly 350 of the facility’s 484 residents, who were transferred there late last week, have not returned to the detention center in recent days, Haaretz reported.

The protesters held signs reading: “I didn’t choose to be a refugee”, “we are in danger, not dangerous” and “you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Some of the protesters have been on a hunger strike since being brought to the Holot detention facility.

The Knesset last week approved an amendment to the Migrant Law to allow Israeli officials to hold African migrants in prison for up to a year without trial and in the open detention facility indefinitely.  The amendment came after Israel’s Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the law allowing officials to hold migrants without trial for three years.