Children's fate
The difficult situation of children of foreign workers has been worrying the Israeli Government for some time. There are ca. 1,200 known children of such people living in Israel. Most of them were born here and have known no other country. They speak Hebrew and learn in Israeli schools and are quite well adapted, although none of them are Jewish. There are serious problems, because the Orthodox want them deported, because they might inter-marry, but the liberal-left want them all to stay, since they are sympathetic even to illegal immigrants and they argue that the children would suffer if returned to their parent's native country (such as Philippines, Thailand and Sudan).
First, the Government decided to deport all of them and their parents, since it is illegal for a foreign worker to have a child in Israel, since this is a well known way to remain in a country. Then under pressure they gave them until the end of the school year. But, then the children's supporters went to court and it was ruled that the Government can't deport all of them as a group without considering their cases individually. So the Government did what any good Government does, it formed a Committee. That Committee has now ruled, and has come up with specific criteria, i.e. if the parents were here legally and if the child has been here for at least 5 years and if they speak Hebrew and go to an Israeli school, then they can stay as citizens and so can their siblings and parents. Applied to the group of children in question this means that 800 can stay, but 400 must be deported. Of course, both sides of the case are not satisfied, but the Government has decided that this approach is legal and satisfactory, and will apply this ruling very soon. Although it does not prevent another build-up of such children in the future, at least now there are some objective criteria which can be applied to decide the fate of a given child.
In general, the Government needs to enact a new immigration law, since there is no coherent law for non-Jews (the Law of Return applies only to Jews). As Pres. Obama is finding in the US, such laws can have significant political consequences.
First, the Government decided to deport all of them and their parents, since it is illegal for a foreign worker to have a child in Israel, since this is a well known way to remain in a country. Then under pressure they gave them until the end of the school year. But, then the children's supporters went to court and it was ruled that the Government can't deport all of them as a group without considering their cases individually. So the Government did what any good Government does, it formed a Committee. That Committee has now ruled, and has come up with specific criteria, i.e. if the parents were here legally and if the child has been here for at least 5 years and if they speak Hebrew and go to an Israeli school, then they can stay as citizens and so can their siblings and parents. Applied to the group of children in question this means that 800 can stay, but 400 must be deported. Of course, both sides of the case are not satisfied, but the Government has decided that this approach is legal and satisfactory, and will apply this ruling very soon. Although it does not prevent another build-up of such children in the future, at least now there are some objective criteria which can be applied to decide the fate of a given child.
In general, the Government needs to enact a new immigration law, since there is no coherent law for non-Jews (the Law of Return applies only to Jews). As Pres. Obama is finding in the US, such laws can have significant political consequences.
posted by Jack Cohen at 9:49 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home