Gaimes, unlike the friends she sees when they have weekend leave, has no Israeli ID card. She is the daughter of an illegal foreign worker from Colombia who brought her here at the age of eight.

"The country gave me a lot, [including] the people who have helped me, the chance at a better education, the opportunity to advance," she said.

"I really wanted to serve the state."

Despite an Interior Ministry proposal published Thursday to grant permanent residency and then citizenship to children of foreign workers, Gaimes won't be allowed to join the army any time soon.

When Interior Minister Ophir Paz-Pines unveiled the eligibility guidelines for these children which are pending approval by an interministerial committee next Wednesday he specifically stated they will only apply to children born in the country.

That leaves Gaimes with no legal status.

"It seems unfair," Gaimes said. "In terms of the connection to the country, somebody who was born here and someone who arrives here as a young child is the same thing. I know the country as well."

So well, she said, that she has no ties to Colombia except for her family there, and she now prefers Hebrew to her mother tongue of Spanish.

"I don't see any difference," said Sigal Rozen of the Hot Line for Migrant Workers about children born here versus those who came at a young age.

"The children themselves don't see any difference. Among the children, they don't remember anything else... The years in which their personality was formed they spent in Israel. They're Israelis."

In addition to having been born in Israel and being 10 or older, eligible individuals must "speak the Hebrew language, and it's expected that sending him away from Israel would mean 'cultural exile' to a country with which he has no cultural connection," Rozen added.

The distinction made in the guidelines between those who were born here and those who weren t is one of the key points troubling the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

ACRI spokesman Yoav Loeff also criticized the requirement that the parents must have entered the country legally, in part because it can be hard to prove since many of the passports have been traded in or lost.

Additionally, he said, the government can't "punish someone because of their parents," who made the choice to bring their children to Israel.

"They let the people stay here for 15 or 20 years and then they separate them into groups because of what their parents did 20 years ago."

ACRI brought a case on behalf of four children without status in 2003, but was told by the court to await the interministerial committee s decision before proceeding. Loeff said his organization was currently reviewing the guidelines.

He added, however, that ACRI "welcomes" the move despite "seeing problems."

Rozen also praised the Interior Ministry for taking a stand in favor of granting status to at least some of the children. She is somewhat hopeful that the changes she would like to see could happen, because she believes the Interior Ministry has overestimated the number of eligible children.

In comparison to the 2,000- to 3,000-person estimate provided by the ministry, Rozen pointed, for starters, to Education Ministry statistics showing that only 604 children of foreign workers between the ages of 10 and 18 attended school in Israel.

"I'm hoping that when they realize that according to the criteria that they set, there are 10 children who fit and that's the number I think there will be that they'll be more flexible," Rozen said.

Gaimes indicated she certainly hoped so. At the thought of leaving Israel, she burst into tears.

"I'm sorry that I m crying, but it s really hard to leave," she said.

"I am ready to do everything I can for the state. I'm really connected to this country."