Hundreds of Israelis protest as Filipino workers deported - report

The protests were sparked by 18 workers along with their children were deported over the past five months.

By YVETTE J. DEANE
Filipino children 521 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Filipino children 521
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Hundreds of Israelis rallied against the deportation of Filipino workers and their children on Saturday in Tel Aviv, according to Israeli media.
The protests were sparked by the deportation of 18 workers along with their children over the past five months, Haaretz reported.
“We came to Israel legally many years ago and since then we have worked taking care of the elderly and those with special needs, with great devotion,” the event's organizers said, according to the report.
“Our children were born and grew up in Israel, they studied in the Israeli educational system alongside Israeli children and like their friends they play, sing and dream in Hebrew. Now our children face the danger of deportation to a country they don’t know and whose language they don’t speak.”
"As a rule, anyone who lives illegally in Israel is supposed to know that he is breaking the law and that it will enforced at one stage or another,” the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority said in response, according to Ynet.
The Filipino community reported that in recent months the Population and Immigration Authority again imposed a ban on their stay in Israel beyond the visa period they received when they arrived in Israel, after years of neglect, Ynet reported. Some mothers have been notified of their expected deportation at the end of the coming school year.
Two 11-year-old Filipino girls, Chloe and Rosa, said to Ynet, "We are afraid, we were born here, there is no difference between people and people ... When we heard that we were about to be deported, we felt pressure, we were sad. We will not get along there and it will be hard for us to meet friends and study at school. We hardly know the language. We have a lot of Israeli friends here and they are sad that we have to leave the country. "


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