Foreign workers pick flowers
Foreign workers pick flowersIsrael news photo: Flash 90
A special ministerial committee created to decide on policy toward foreign workers and their Israeli-born children has decided to allow most of the workers with children to stay in Israel. 


TV Channel 1 reported that in 800 out of 1,200 cases in which illegal foreigners have Israeli-born children, the children will receive citizenship along with their brothers and parents.


In the 400 remaining cases, the children will be evicted along with their parents.


The debate around the naturalization of illegal laborers has centered on their children, with leftist groups and much of the media claiming that evicting Israeli-born Hebrew speaking children would be immoral. The discussions usually ignored the fact that naturalizing the children with their families would be an incentive to illegal immigrants to have children as a way of gaining citizenship.


The ministerial committee decided to allow families to stay if their children are Hebrew speakers, and if the children have been in Israel for at least five years.     
 
In the case of families with children who do not fit the criteria, the families will be evicted within 30 days from the adoption of the recommendations by the government. In most of these cases, the children are three years old or younger.
 
If the recommendations become permanent policy, they will make it possible, from now on, to evict laborers who bear children in Israel as long as the children do not reach the age of five in Israel.