Photography by: Rotem Ilan
ACRI and the Hotline for Migrant Workers commend Minister of Interior’s announcement to approve applications for residency
On February 10, 2014, Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that the residency applications of 221 children of migrants would be granted.
In 2010, as a result of a multi-year effort led by Israeli Children in cooperation with several human rights organizations including the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the government decided to grant residency status to children of migrants that met certain criteria, such as the child’s parent having entered into Israel legally and the child being fluent in Hebrew. Some 700 children who met these criteria applied.
After the Israeli Children project merged with ACRI last July, the project leaders continued assisting and supporting the migrant families through the long and trying wait for an answer. In cases in which families’ requests for residency status were denied, Hotline and the Israzeli Children project appealed the rejections. Yesterday, the Interior Minister decided to accept the 221 applications that were still pending.
Rotem Ilan, Israeli Children project coordinator at ACRI: “Ever since the government’s 2010 decision, these children have lived in continuous uncertainty and trepidation. Now, after a four year struggle, they are finally legal residents in the country they were born into, which has become their only home.
This specific step of granting residency status to these children is a necessary and humane one, and Minister Sa’ar should be commended for taking it. Now we hope that a fair immigration policy will be established in Israel – one that includes recognition of the rights of migrant workers that Israel decided to bring here.”
