Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz plans to deport illegal foreign workers as a way to improve the economy. Immigration Authority head Yaakov Ganot also has plans to increase compliance by employers in laws requiring them to hire Israelis.
Steinitz told ministry officials last week to formulate a plan that would also impose “painful economic sanctions” against employers who hire the illegal aliens.
“The point is to make it fiscally unwise to hire an illegal worker,” he said. “It is not enough merely to deport the workers; we must also hurt the employers.”
Approximately 25 percent of the foreign work force in Israel is present illegally, according to Steinitz, who called it “an outrage.” Fewer operations against illegal workers were conducted by the Immigration Authority in 2008, thus leading to the influx.
Infiltration by Sudanese from Egypt who snuck in through the southern border and pressure from the international community to accept them as refugees has also contributed to the problem.
Steinitz plans to strengthen the legal foreign work force by offering those workers financial incentives, according to the Finance Ministry.
More than 200,000 Israeli citizens are on the unemployment rolls – and that number does not include those who have been deemed ineligible to receive benefits.
Immigration Authority head Yaakov Ganot confirmed there is much work to be done but added that his bureau would be given funding by the Finance Ministry to address the problems.
“The change in the economic situation, the increase in immigration lawyers, the lack of an entity to investigate refugee applications, public tolerance for hiring illegal employees – all this has caused the current situation,” he said.
Ganot plans to improve inter-agency cooperation with a computerized database and to create an enforcement division to go after employers who hire illegal aliens instead of Israelis and legal foreign workers.