JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel deported a Filipino guest worker and her Israel-born son, now 12.
Rosemarie and Rohan Perez were sent out Monday evening a week after being arrested in a raid on their Tel Aviv apartment conducted by the Population and Immigration Authority. Rohan was attending a local school, Ynet reported.
The Israeli government this summer intends to deport approximately 50 children of foreign workers who have overstayed their work visas and are in the country illegally, according to The Times of Israel.
While a number of other arrests have been made, including one of a woman and her special needs son, this is the first deportation to be carried out as part of the current operation.
“They just tossed us around,” Ynet quoted Rohan as saying. “They took us to the airport with nothing. We asked to make a phone call, but they wouldn’t let us. I told them that I wanted to stay here and that we have done nothing wrong.”
The government had previously made moves to deport locally born children of foreign workers, but the Interior Ministry made a “humanitarian decision” in 2010 to refrain from expelling children attending school here. Some of those born in Israel only speak Hebrew.
An Immigration Authority spokeswoman, Sabine Hadad, said an Israeli court had allowed the expulsion of the Perezes on Sunday, the French news agency AFP reported.
Some 25,000 to 30,000 Filipino workers live in Israel, many of whom work as aides to the elderly.
