Since the establishment of the administration in September 2002, and through to the end of February, 9,892 people have been deported from the country. From March 2 through April 13, a further 4,402 individuals were deported. In other words, 31 percent of the total number of deportees have been sent home in recent weeks.

The number of individuals who have left of their own free will has also increased, albeit at a lower rate. In the first six months of the administration's activities, 24,173 individuals left the country voluntarily; a further 9,544 (28 percent of the total) left willingly during the first two weeks of April.

Today, 1,003 individuals are being held in detention pending their deportations.

At the beginning of this month, with the administration hard at work implementing the government's policy to reduce the number of foreign workers in the country, Trade and Industry Minister Ehud Olmert issued 2,000 additional permits for foreign workers. At the same time, he renewed work permits that had expired at the end of March.

Last week, the government accepted Olmert's proposal not to reduce the number of permits for the employment of foreign workers this year and leave it at 61,000. According to a previous decision, from September 2001, the government was supposed to have reduced the number of permits at a rate of 10,000 a year. Olmert has promised that in 2004, only 48,000 such permits will be issued.

Father Gabriel from St. Peter's Church in Jaffa, which boasts a large community of foreign workers, believes that the war in Iraq created a window of opportunity for the government: "The deportation of so many people at any other time would have attracted attention," he said.

Father Gabriel is the first official representative of the Catholic Church to come out harshly against the Emigration Administration, accusing it of mistreating and humiliating the foreign workers and violating their human rights and freedom of religion. Many foreign workers, he says, failed to show up for Easter services from fear of the authorities.

"As time goes by, the deportations become more effective and more focused," says Superintendent Orit Freedman of the spokesman's office of the Emigration Administration's. "We have improved the process, and it is also easier to get people out of the country so it happens faster."