JERUSALEM: Israel has deported a Filipino migrant worker and her Israeli-born teenage son after 11th hour legal appeals failed, a children’s rights group and authorities said Tuesday.
She is among some 600 workers from the Philippines who activists say could face deportation over a loss of residency status.
They include those who breached the conditions of their residency by starting families in the country.
The families and supporters say deporting the children to a country which they have never seen and whose languages they do not speak is a cruel policy.
Rosemarie Perez was arrested by immigration officials along with her 13-year-old son Rohan last week for remaining in the country illegally.
They had been taken to Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Sunday night after an appeals court upheld their deportation, Beth Franco of the United Children of Israel (UCI) association said.
But they were taken off the plane after their lawyer requested an urgent hearing on their status in a bid to have them remain in Israel.
On Monday evening, they were escorted to Ben-Gurion airport where they were put on a flight to Bangkok for onward connection to Manila, Franco said.
Israel’s immigration authority confirmed in a statement they had been deported, adding Perez had been in the country illegally for 12 years and that all court appeals had been exhausted.
Last week, migrants, their children and Israeli supporters held a protest in Tel Aviv against the policy of deporting Israeli-born children of migrants.
Many of the 28,000 — largely Christian — Filipinos in Israel arrived to work as caregivers and home help, but according to UCI, some 600 families could now face expulsion.
Their visas were conditioned on the requirement that they do not start a family in the country apart from certain exceptions, the association says.
The issue has particular resonance in Israel, where there are long-term fears about maintaining a Jewish majority in the country which was founded as a national homeland for Jews.
Israel deports Filipino worker, Israeli-born son
Israel deports Filipino worker, Israeli-born son
- Some of these workers face deportation for starting families in Israel
- Families say the policy is cruel
Syrian army declares Daesh-linked camp ‘closed security zone’
- Al-Hol is the largest camp for suspected Daesh relatives
- A military source said the army’s measure aimed to control security around the camp
DAMASCUS: Syria’s army announced Friday that a camp housing suspected relatives of Daesh group fighters was closed to the public, a measure a military source said was meant to bolster security around the facility.
Earlier this month, the army entered the vast Al-Hol camp after the withdrawal of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
In a statement Friday, it said the area was a “closed security zone.”
Located in a desert region of Hasakah province, Al-Hol is the largest camp for suspected Daesh relatives and is home to some 24,000 people, mostly women and children, including 6,200 foreigners.
A military source told AFP the army’s measure aimed to control security around the camp and maintain order within it.
Some camp residents fled during the “security vacuum” between when the SDF withdrew and the army took control, two former employees of organizations working at the site told AFP last week.
In recent days, new reports emerged of attempts to flee the camp.
In the latest issue of its official Al-Naba publication — translated by the SITE monitoring group — Daesh called on supporters to free women held captive in Al-Hol.
In 2014, Daesh swept across Syria and Iraq, committing massacres and forcing women and girls into sexual slavery, but backed by a US-led coalition, the Kurdish-led SDF ultimately defeated the militants in Syria five years later.
The SDF went on to jail thousands of suspected militants and detain tens of thousands of their relatives in camps.
When the Syrian army took control of the camp, most humanitarian organizations withdrew, and aid has only been trickling in since.
The Save the Children charity warned on Friday that the humanitarian situation in the camp was “rapidly deteriorating as food, water and medicines run dangerously low.”
After Syrian government forces advanced against Kurdish forces, Washington said it would transfer 7,000 Daesh suspects, previously held by Syrian Kurdish fighters, to Iraq.
The transfer is still underway.
