Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time: “We all feel and understand the hearts of children. But on the other hand, there are Zionist considerations and ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel. We don’t want to create an incentive for the inflow of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrant workers.”
But many of the undocumented workers lost their legal status simply by giving birth, as Israeli policy formerly stipulated that migrant workers who give birth must either send their babies back to their home countries, or keep their children and lose their work visas.
In April this year, the Israeli high court ruled that this law was unconstitutional.
“Forcing a woman to choose between continued employment while realizing her legitimate financial expectations, and realizing her right to motherhood, cannot be reconciled with the normative and legal-constitutional perceptions of Israeli society. Constructing the alternatives in such a way is, first and foremost, a violation of the migrant worker’s right to parenthood,” the court stated in its ruling.
As the court’s ruling is not being implemented retroactively, migrant workers who gave birth before the ruling are still scheduled for deportation with their children. According to Noa Galili, spokeswoman for Israeli Children, an organization that has been working to stop the deportations and grant the children permanent status in Israel, approximately sixty children have been deported to date.
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