The petition was submitted by Hotline for Migrant Workers. It said that in 39 percent of the 81 complaints against police conduct filed with the PIU between 1999 and 2004 by the organization itself or by others that it monitored, the worker was expelled before the complaint was investigated. In another 2%, the PIU managed to question the plaintiff and the police and concluded that the police should be put on trial, but by that time the worker had been expelled and the case was closed.

There are other reasons why complaints are not always investigated. In some cases, the police cannot find an interpreter for the plaintiff or cannot find the plaintiff in jail. In cases where the plaintiff is held in jail and the investigation takes too long, he often prefers to return to his homeland rather than languish any longer in jail.

Even when the foreign worker is let out of jail and allowed to stay in Israel during the investigation of his complaint, he has no legal status, which means he cannot work and is not entitled to health care.

Of the complaints lodged or monitored by the Hotline for Migrant Workers, 74% concerned police violence at the time of arrest, 13% allegations of theft of money or property by police during the arrest, and 5% had to do with allegations that police had cooperated with the pimps and traffickers of the women under arrest.

According to PIU figures that were submitted to a parliamentary committee in December 2004, it had indicted only seven policemen in connection with all the complaints (not only those connected to the Hotline) lodged against police conduct towards foreign workers.

Attorney Naomi Levenkorn, who represents the petitioners, provided examples of incidents in which police allegedly used violence against foreign workers without being punished.

In one of these cases, Rebecca Adumua, a Ghanaian citizen, was allegedly beaten by police while being detained on the early morning of October 28, 2004, even though she shouted that she was pregnant. One of the witnesses to the incident reported that a policeman pushed Adumua so hard against a car that she dented it. Adumua was questioned about the incident while in detention on November 8.

According to the daily Haaretz, the Immigration Police tried to deport her three days later. When the newspaper inquired about the incident the police allegedly said there had been a mistake and they did not know her case was still under investigation. They added that they had learned lessons form the incident and it would not happen again. Nevertheless, Adumua was expelled on November 16. The following month, the PIU informed the Hotline for Migrant Workers that it had closed the case for lack of evidence. It did not question any of those who had witnessed the incident.