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A Little Influence Gets a Family Legal Status Interior Minister Avraham Poraz has granted residence to a Ukrainian woman who lived in Israel illegally for six years and was employed by Israir CEO Sabina Biran. The woman's daughters - aged 17 and 23 - also got resident status. The woman, whose mother is an Israeli citizen by marriage, arrived in Israel in 1998 with her daughters and got tourist visas. Three years ago, she asked the Interior Ministry to grant her legal status in Israel but the request was denied, despite efforts by a senior Shas member who had a position in the Jerusalem Municipality at the time. "There was no reason to approve legal status for a non-Jewish woman who was working illegally for someone who wasn't sick or disabled and was not eligible for a foreign worker," an Interior Ministry official close to the affair said. A few months ago, an aide to the president of the Technion Institute of Technology approached Poraz and asked him to extend the student visa of the Ukrainian woman's eldest daughter so she could complete the masters degree studies she began in 2000. She is considered a very good student. After getting the letter from the Technion, "the interior minister decided to approve temporary [resident] status for her, the mother and the younger daughter. This was on the grounds that the daughter's studies at the Technion should not be suspended and she should not be cut off from her mother and sister so as not to break up the family nucleus," wrote the spokeswoman for the Population Registry, Sabine Hadad. While the Technion requested an extension to the daughter's student visa, Poraz decided to grant the entire family temporary residency status. Over the past 18 months during which Poraz has served as interior minister, hundreds of families have been split up by deportation orders issued by the Interior Ministry against first-degree family members of Israeli citizens. The Population Registry spokeswoman said that Poraz was unaware of the woman's ties with Sabina Biran and that his decision was based on the circumstances of the woman's life and her family. For her part, Biran said she did not know Poraz personally and had not approached him on the matter. All she did, she said, was to ask the Interior Ministry what was required of the woman in order to receive legal status in the country. The woman's daughter, Biran added, was a prodigy and so the Technion also came to her assistance.
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