Israeli court halts foreign toddler’s deportation

JERUSALEM—An Israeli court has issued an 11th hour order preventing the deportation of a four-year-old girl born in Israel to Filipino parents working in the Jewish state, a rights group said on Wednesday.

The girl and her mother “were actually on the plane before it was about to take off,” an official of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) told Agence France-Presse, speaking on condition of anonymity.

She said that the dramatic intervention came shortly before midnight on Tuesday, after an ACRI lawyer obtained a temporary injunction from the Petah Tikva district court, near Ben Gurion international airport.

The association will go back to court on Thursday seeking to annul the deportation order itself, she said.

“This is the first time in Israel’s history that a child, born and raised in Israel, enrolled in kindergarten in Tel Aviv and integrated into Israel’s public education system has been deported by the Interior Ministry,” ACRI said in a statement.

It said that although the child’s mother was working without a permit, her father had been living in Israel legally for over a decade.

“The child is thus a legal resident of Israel,” it added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that his wife Sara sought to intervene on the little girl’s behalf with the interior ministry.

A statement said that Sara Netanyahu met on Wednesday with the child, who was identified as Ofek, and her father Christopher, “to work out a plan of action.”

ACRI said that the father had not been informed by Israeli authorities of his family’s impending deportation and only learned what was happening on Tuesday night, when local charity Israeli Children raised the alarm.

Ofek was released into his care on Tuesday night while the mother was returned to Israeli custody, ACRI said.

Anxious to preserve the character of the Jewish state, the interior ministry, headed by a minister from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas party, is seeking to expel children of foreigners working illegally in Israel.

Israeli Children’s Facebook page says that 1,200 children are under threat.

The children are, for all intents and purposes, Israeli — they speak fluent Hebrew, know all the Jewish holidays by heart and celebrate them at school, and consider Israel their home.

Israel started welcoming non-Jewish immigrants mainly from Asia in the mid-1990s to fill a need for cheap labor in construction, agriculture and caregiving.

It issues work visas for nearly 30,000 foreigners every year, and many stay on once their visas expire.