The three were taken to the Immigration Police station in Jerusalem's Talpiot neighborhood, where they were held for five hours. Belibago says their cellphones were confiscated, so they were unable to call anyone for help or let their employers know they would not be coming in for work. The three was interrogated separately. Most of the questions involved their social contacts - whether they knew any other foreign workers, and if so, whether their friends were here legally, where they lived and what their phone numbers were. "I told them I don't know anyone. I only work and go home," said Belibago, distressed by the experience. "They asked me, `What, you don't go to a disco on Saturday night?' she said.

Eventually, all three were bundled into a police van. They were told they were either being taken to Ramle, to the Immigration Police headquarters, or to the women's prison for illegal workers in Hadera to await deportation. In the van, Belibago was able to take out another cellphone she had hidden and called her employer and her sister. The employer called the police, and either as a result of this intervention or for some other reason, the three were driven to Beit Hakerem, another Jerusalem neighborhood, and told to get out of the van and go home.

Belibago and her friends are not the only foreign workers who have been pressured by the police for information about others. The capital's dwindling foreign worker community is gripped by a sense of distrust. Except close friends, the sense is that anyone could be an informer. "During prison visits by our volunteers, prisoners point to other prisoners and tell us they are shtinkers [informers]," says Sigal Rosen, of the Hotline for Migrant Workers. "But apparently the status of the informers doesn't grant them immunity for long. Eventually, they too are arrested," Rosen says.

The immigration police reportedly use Israeli informers as well, among them taxi drivers, who say the police offer them NIS 50 for every foreign worker fare. Employers are also a source of information, although Chief Superintendent Rafi Yaffe says the police invest great effort in ascertaining whether tips by employers are provided only to avoid paying money owed to foreign workers.

"I view very seriously the use of the same methods by the Immigration Police that are used with Palestinians to stop terror attacks. These are migrant workers, not terrorists," MK Ran Cohen (Meretz), chairman of the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers, said.

With regard to Belibago, Chief Superintendent Yaffe said the Interior Ministry representative believed her documents needed additional checking, after which Belibago and her friends were released. "The immigration administration has methods to obtain and verify information, and we do not intend to go into detail," he said.