The Immigration Authority has decided to arrest and detain whole families at the women's detention center in Hadera. (Photo by Itzik Ben Malki)

In the days since the unveiling of the operation at a press conference last Thursday, meetings have been held between the heads of the authority and members of organizations that assist the foreign workers to discuss the problems inherent in the detention of families awaiting deportation. At one of the meetings it was hinted that the police can arrest the parents and a solution would be found for the children, "just like when single mothers who are criminals are arrested."

The idea of using the social services, however, was never seriously discussed. Instead, the authority decided to arrest and detain whole families at the women's detention center in Hadera.

This decision was well concealed at the information conferences held by the immigration authorities for the communities of foreign workers over the past week and in the information sheets that were distributed. These presented a two-stage operation. The first, which has already begun, calls on families to register at Immigration Police stations. This registration guarantees the families two months of protection from arrest, during which time they are supposed to settle all their affairs in Israel and purchase airline tickets. In order to make the registration easier, the Authority promised to grant family heads a grace period and not to arrest them at all until the beginning of September.

In the second stage, which will begin September 1, the Authority will resume arresting families, apart from those who have registered and who have a departure date.

In the third stage, which is not mentioned on the information sheets, whole families will be arrested and detained - the authorities call this remand in custody, but it is detention - until their deportation. Under the program, this stage, which the authority calls the "last and final stage of the operation," will commence toward the end of October or the beginning of November.

Sources at the Authority say that the Hadera facility is suitable for this purpose since it has apartment-like facilities - "each room has a kitchenette and private bathroom." "It is very simple to accommodate families there and there is no problem in providing the necessary equipment, such as diapers and other such things," says the Authority spokesperson, Superintendent Orit Friedman. "We hope we will not have to reach that stage," she says, "because it creates a tough situation, but if we have to, it is not so complicated. It is not as if we are putting a family into solitary confinement. There are lawns there, the conditions are good."

As to how the authority is preparing to cope with situations in which children refuse to be taken into detention, since some of them were born and raised in Israel and view this as their only home, Friedman said that the assumption is that "children follow their parents."

"Do you know a child who will agree to be separated from his parents?" she asks. "In any event, the process will be accompanied by social workers. We will do everything to ensure that the operation is handled properly and will not reach the final stage."

Children are scared

The children may not be enchanted by the lawns, particularly since lately they have been exposed to a very high rate of arrests. Stories are circulating about a child who went into shock when the police searched his home, and he was unable to speak for several hours.

"Quite often I imagine what it would be like if my mother were taken," says B., 14, "but I cannot imagine them taking me. That is too frightening."

A common rumor among the older children is that they will not be allowed to start school in September because there are plans for them to be deported anyway. Others say that if they are allowed to go to school, "it is doubtful whether it is worth asking their parents to spend so much money on text books, if the authorities are taking us away from here."

"I used to be able to explain to the children that the police are not bad people and even if they arrest me, the children would not be harmed," says P. a foreign worker from Columbia and a father of two. "What can I tell them now?"

"I don't know what to do," says a foreign worker from Sri Lanka, whose husband, a Nigerian, has already been deported to his native land. "I cannot go back to my country, where I have no one, and in my husband's country I will be a foreigner, an undesirable.

"Where can my children and I go?" she laments. "I know people with no children who live in their employers' homes and can hide there. We have nowhere to hide because the children have to go to school."

P. is also unable to hide for the same reason, but he is not planning to register. "We left our country because there a child who walks out his front door can be murdered for his shoes," says P. "We came to Israel for religious reasons, but also because I knew the history of the Jews and thought that a people that has suffered persecution and deportation so many times would be a bit more understanding of those who are forced to flee their own lands. I see I was mistaken, but I still cannot go back there, and certainly cannot take my children there." D., a foreign worker from the Philippines, has basically been living in hiding for several weeks. He says he is willing and even wants to go back to his country, but his wife, who is a care-giver with a visa, is pregnant and he does not want to leave her alone at such a time.

"At first I still worked a bit in this area and even went out to the corner grocery store," he says. "Then it became dangerous and I stopped working and eventually stopped going out at all. "

Families will be rent

At the conferences held this week, the problems were raised regarding mixed couples (citizens of different countries), children and adults undergoing medical treatment, which, if interrupted, may endanger them; people who cannot afford an airline ticket; and people with problems similar to that of D., who wish to remain in Israel until the birth of a child.

The Authority's response to these problems was that the people should register with the police and explain their situation, and the Authority promises to check each case separately and to take all the circumstances into consideration, perhaps even assisting in the purchase of tickets.

For A. a foreign worker from Ghana, this is a big temptation, but it is not enough. "The police can buy a ticket for me and I will leave with my children," she says, "but what will we eat [when we get back to Ghana]?"

At the conference last Sunday she and her friends tried to negotiate longer preparation period, but to no avail. "We asked them to give us six months, a year, in order to prepare ourselves," says A. "They told us that we'd already had a year and that there was no more time."

A. says that since the conference, the African community has sunk into a depression. "People are not eating, not talking, and are just crying," she laments. "Even the children are not sleeping at night. I think they (the authorities) could have been more compassionate about people who come from countries where hunger is rife, but no. Here there is no mercy."

"If they had wanted to be considerate, they could have spoken with us first," says R., a foreign worker from the Philippines, who is married with children. "Then maybe they would understand that two months is really not enough time to raise enough money for plane tickets for a family. I am interested in taking advantage of this operation because I know that we are not really wanted here, but we need at least six months."

The aid organizations that are fighting for the rights of the foreign workers said last week that even if the deportation of children, including those born in Israel, is in keeping with Israeli entry laws, there is no way to detain children without causing them severe psychological, and perhaps even physical, harm.

Sigal Rosen, director of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, which is familiar with the deportation process, says that most of the children will have to spend extended periods of time in detention because most of them do not have proper documents and in such cases, the state will have to provide them with an on-site kindergarten and school.

Concerning mixed families, it will be very difficult to deport people to countries that are not their country of origin. "The proceedings will take a long time, something that is liable to draw the denunciation of Israel and, as if that were not enough, there will be cases in which it will be necessary to tear families apart and decide if the children are to go with their father or their mother. It can be assumed that the children will not always cooperate with the state's decision and we will witness some heartrending sights."

Kadman, of the National Council for the Child, says that he has no complaints against the state for wanting to oust the families that are staying in Israel illegally, including their minor children. He said, however, the detention of those minors, if it takes place, is outrageous.

Children under 12 years should not be detained at all, says Kadman, and that "even the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory, states that children must not be punished for their parents' actions or inactions. I do not understand the source of the Immigration Authority's legal basis for such a thing, never mind the fact that it is inhumane, even if it is called a recreation and relaxation camp, and not a detention center.