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Of the 1,200 children of migrant workers slated for deportation in 2009, the Israeli Cabinet on 1 August granted legal status to 800 and said 400 would be deported with their families to their parents’ country of origin within 21 days.
To win legal status, the children had to have enrolled in the Israeli school system, resided in Israel at least five years, entered Israel before the age of 13 or be born there, and speak fluent Hebrew.
"Israel must formulate a humane immigration policy and stop the senseless revolving door policy that wants to deport migrant workers and their children on the one hand, and bring in new ones instead, on the other hand," the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Israel said in a statement, adding that the Cabinet’s decision was a "blatant violation" of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel has signed and was ratified in 1991.
Physicians for Human Rights, an NGO caring for migrant workers, said “the deportation that still hangs over the heads of 400 children is a terrible decree and we aim to fight it''. However, some aid workers, who preferred anonymity, told IRIN they were happy that at least a state of limbo was over for the children.
[See also: IRIN video on African migrants in Israel]
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
