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Restaurant Owner Faces Deportation After 30 Years Here A Chinese restaurant owner living in Israel for the past 30 years was arrested eight days ago as an illegal alien and is being held in Ma'asiyahu Prison. A deportation order has been issued against Ho Yung Chan, who came to Israel to work at Tel Aviv's first Chinese restaurant, the Singing Bamboo. Later, he helped establish Mandy's, the first Chinese restaurant in Eilat. Eventually, he married, had three children, and opened his own restaurant, Sunflower, in Rishon Letzion 25 years ago. One of his children died of a brain tumor at the age of 6 at Tel Hashomer Hospital. Two other children finished high school at the American International School in Kfar Shmaryahu. They are both studying for master's degrees, one in Hong Kong and the other in the United States. According to a family friend, Ho's wife is in Hong Kong at the moment, and is unable to get an entrance visa to Israel. Eight days ago, at 7 P.M., the immigration police arrived at Ho's restaurant in Rishon Letzion and arrested him, along with one of his employees. Ho's attorney, Efrat Mor-Milman, immediately sent a letter to the Immigration Administration requesting that she be invited to any proceeding regarding her client. The next day, a hearing was held in the prison, but Mor-Milman was not informed. The Interior Ministry court operating in prisons where illegal aliens are held refused to release Ho. Mor-Milman then appealed to the Tel Aviv District Court, sitting as the court for administrative issues, to release her client and cancel the deportation order against him. Mor-Milman admitted that Ho had not settled the matter of his status in Israel and that there were years when his presence was illegal. At present, Ho has a valid tourist visa. Mor-Milman noted that Ho, 56, pays taxes, manages a legal business, has transferred money here from abroad, employs more than 10 workers, and has lived at the same address for the past 25 years. Ho's accountant wrote the court that Ho has paid more than NIS 130,000 VAT during each of the past three years. "The Interior Ministry should not have treated Ho as if he were just another illegal alien," Mor-Milman wrote the court. The court has instructed the state not to deport Ho until proceedings against him have been concluded. In light of her client's increasing psychological distress, Mor-Milman asked the court yesterday to release Ho from prison. "An absurd situation has been created," she wrote, "whereby a real criminal, who may have committed violent offenses and is a danger to the public, might ask the court to release him from jail the day after his arrest. A special law exists for illegal residents, as a result of which, Ho has been in prison for eight days and his case has still not been heard by the court." According to Mor-Milman, the transcripts of Ho's hearing at Ma'asiyahu Prison do not reflect what he actually said, since his Hebrew is faulty and no interpreter was present.
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