The Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) and the organization, The Hotline for Migrant Workers, submitted a petition to the Supreme Court on 30.8.05, on behalf of a family of migrant workers, and against the Israeli government and the Minister of the Interior, to demand a change in the government arrangement for granting residency status to the children of migrant workers. The petition calls for the court to order the cancellation of the condition which demands that the child be born in Israel, and the condition which determines that Israeli residency status will only be granted to a child whose parents entered the country legally before his/her birth. The court was also asked to order the granting of permanent residency status to the petitioning youth, and temporary residence to his parents and his young sister until he reaches the age of 21. The petition was submitted by ACRI Attorney Michal Pinchuk.
The youth, known as A’, is 14 years old and was born in Colombia. He came to Israel together with his mother when he was three years old. His father had arrived in Israel ten months earlier. The couple had an additional child, a daughter who is now 8 years old, who was raised and educated in Israel as an Israeli in every sense. The young man is currently in 10th grade in the “Hebrew Gymnasia” high school, and he intends to focus on computer studies. As a result of the government decision on 26.6.05, according to which the condition of being born in Israel is a pre-condition for permanent residency status in Israel, A’ was condemned, as he does not comply with this criteria, to leaving his friends, and his immediate and familiar surroundings for a foreign country outside of Israel.
Attorney Pinchuk makes clear that there are many others like A’ in the country, who do not comply with one of the two conditions that are the subject of the petition. Up until now, the government arrangement provided protection for these children and their families from detention and deportation for over a year and a half. This temporary protection was extended to the middle of September. At that point, according to the recent government decision, “migrants and their families who do not comply with the prescribed criteria will be expelled from Israel”. Attorney Pinchuk emphasizes in the petition the severe injury that will be caused to the petitioning youth and to others in similar situations, if he is deported from the country in which he was raised and educated, and which represents the center of his life. If they are forced to leave Israel, she further states, their way of life will end abruptly, and they will be torn from their familiar and loved surroundings, uprooted to a strange country, of which, in many cases they do not even know the language. In light of the severe damage that is liable to be caused to the petitioning youth and other children in his position, the court is asked to issue an interim injunction that will prohibit the expulsion of these children before the conclusion of the petition. Although the court delayed its decision on the injunction, it made clear that it expected that the Minister of Internal Affairs, Ophir Pines-Paz will not issue detention or expulsion orders until a hearing on the petition has been held.
Attorney Pinchuk explains in the petition that the condition requiring birth in Israel, like the condition which relates to the parents` entry into Israel, does not achieve the stated purpose of the government decision, a purpose that has been described in the past as “finding a solution, on humanitarian grounds, for the children of migrant workers who were brought to Israel or were born there in circumstances that were beyond their control and, over many years, have become integrated into Israeli society, and whose expulsion from the country would mean relocation to a foreign country with which they have no cultural ties”. The petition adds, “the conditions are arbitrary and illegitimate…the idea of the means justifying the end in relation to the government arrangement has resulted in a harsh reality in which youths like the petitioner, who are in no doubt that Israel is the center of their lives, will be forced to leave it”. Attorney Pinchuk further adds that the arrangement is disproportionate due to the incompatibility of its provisions with its stated aim. The fulfilling of the condition which requires a child to be born in Israel, is not a necessary requirement for the country subsequently becoming the center of his/her life, and it certainly does not, in any sense center that person geographically. This is also true of the second condition, the circumstances of the parent’s entry into Israel, which has no bearing on the consolidation of his/her life in Israel”. The arrangement, she further emphasizes, also violates the right to equality, as it discriminates between children among which there is no substantive difference in their level of assimilation into Israeli society, other than the fact that some of them were born here, and others like A’ came here as toddlers. Finally, she adds, the government’s policy on this issue even contravenes the ethics of the State of Israel as a democratic Jewish state that honors human rights, and which gives great weight to: humanitarian questions; the obligation to respect resident migrant workers; and state assurance of their wellbeing. The expulsion of the youth, who arrived here 12 years ago, when he was only three, she states, certainly does not conform to the paradigms of morality and justice by which the State of Israel intends to achieve its objectives.
last updated : 22/09/05
