Even before this ruling, government policy discriminated against babies and small children. Thanks to the brisk round-up operations of the Immigration Police, very few of the children cared for by Felicia have fathers in the country. Thus their daily lives revolve solely around the work schedules of their mothers. A mother who has no job that day will stay home with the child. Someone who has found an afternoon job, cleaning offices, for example, will ask Felicia to care for her child until she finishes work, which could be until eight or nine in the evening. So why do they stay here? "Because we have to work," says Felicia. "Each of us supports a family in Africa. Without the money we send, they won't survive."

To call it a "day-care center" is something of an exaggeration. In this two-room apartment, Felicia cares for 15 children. Their mothers are foreign workers, mostly from Africa. In the larger room, occupied by four playpens and a bed, Felicia tends to the needs of 10 infants, the youngest of them 2 months old. They stay there up to 12 hours a day. In the past the women took three months off for maternity leave, but nowadays they cannot afford such a luxury. As soon as the baby is 2 months old, they go back to work.

Today, some 20 makeshift day-care centers are operating in South Tel Aviv. Once, not so long ago, the nannies received training courses organized by Mesila - Tel Aviv Municipality's Aid and Information Center for the Foreign Community - and run by faculty members of the Preschool Department of the Kibbutz Teachers Seminar. Now, the courses have stopped because the nannies are afraid to go out of the house. Even today, some of the department students do their practical training there. The conditions can't compare with what you see in Israeli creches, they say. "These kids are growing up in a different country," remarked one of the students this week.

M., a Filipina who runs such a facility in her own home, agrees that the conditions are not optimal. "But people don't have money for Na'amat creches," she says. "They pay me $100 a month, and sometimes not even that." This sum is barely enough to cover the bills and rent, let alone diapers and food for the children whose mothers are stuck at work and haven't sent enough. She can only dream about toys. And even if there were any, it's not clear where the children would play with them. A person can hardly move in her living room, crowded with playpens and carriages. The older children - the oldest is 4 - sit on a couch in the tiny entrance hall watching cartoons all day on television.

Not so long ago, the nannies could hire helpers to take the children out to the neighborhood playground. But the mothers, now managing on their own, have trouble paying on time. As a result, many of the day-care centers have let their helpers go. Without them, the children sit indoors all day long and only go out once a week, when the students come around. One of these students says that her young charges were harassed by children from the neighborhood. The local kids spat at them, swore at them and shoved them around.

But it is not the neighborhood children they are most scared of when they go to the park. A police car is scarier. "The kids freeze up and try to look invisible. Some of them cry," says the student. L., a foreign worker from Colombia who cares for children in her home, says that hearing a siren in the street is enough to set off a panic. "The kids race over to me wailing `where's my mommy?' They're afraid she's been picked up by the police."

Even more frightening is when the police officers come into the apartment - a practice that is becoming more prevalent of late. Not so long ago, day-care centers were considered off-limits to the police and claims of motherhood were respected. Now, after cases were discovered of women pretending to be the mother of children who were not theirs, the police have taken to entering creches to check out suspicious claims.

Felicia has had several visits from the police. "Usually they call first to say they're coming," she says. "The mother stays downstairs in the car and two police officers come up and ask `what is this child's name?' and `who is his mother?' They don't tell me who's been arrested." A month ago, the police showed up at M.'s creche with a detained woman. "Two police officers came in with this woman and asked me where the father was," says M. "I told them the truth - that he'd been deported."

The mother of a 2-year-old was at the creche a few weeks ago when two officers from the Immigration Police walked in. They told the nanny the name of the girl they were looking for - a 4-year-old who was napping at the time. According to this mother, the police woke the child up to ask her what her mother's name was.

The infants and toddlers give the police officers big smiles, as they would to any stranger, say the nannies. The older ones, 3 and over, are frightened and burst into tears. When Felicia wants the little room, sometimes packed with seven children, to come to order, she says: "Immigration will come and take you." It works every time.

Shlomit Hertzberg, spokeswoman of the Immigration Administration, said this week that speaking to the nannies was necessary after the discovery of forged birth certificates. She says that they have been willingly cooperating in efforts to track down the biological mother, and that inquiries have been carried out discreetly, outside the day-care centers.