Nitzan Horowitz
Photo: Moshe Shay
MK Horowitz: Foreign workers with kids shouldn’t be arrested
Meretz Knesset member proposes new bill barring immigration authorities from placing illegal workers' children in jail. 'These kids have done nothing wrong and they do not belong in Israel Prison Service facilities,' he says
Meretz Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz presented the House with a new bill proposal Sunday, barring the immigration authorities from detaining the children of illegal foreign workers or refugees, who are under the age of 14.
Should the bill mature into a law, immigration authorities would be unable to arrest foreign workers with young children, and would have to allow them an extended period of time to leave Israel on their own accord.
Protest
Yael Branovsky
Human rights activists, foreign workers rally in Tel Aviv to protest immigration authority's intention to deport families whose children were born in Israel
"Putting little children in a jail cell in unthinkable. These kids have done nothing wrong and they do not belong in Israel Prison Service facilities," said Horowitz.
Under the Immigration Administration's current policies, minors who are the children of illegal workers can be detained indefinitely, while their families' deportation proceedings are processed. Israeli minors cannot be detained, or must be released after a short period of time.
The 1952 Entry into Israel Act regulated the various authorities' rights to detain and deport illegal aliens, but it fails to differentiate between minors and adults.
The new bill, drafted by Horowitz and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, is essentially meant to be an amendment to the existing act, and it will introduce a legal distinction between minors under the age of 14 – who cannot be detained, and those over 14 and under 18 – who authorities would be able to detain for no longer than four days.
The proposal, said Horowitz, "Is meant to make the law compatible with the guidelines of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child and right a wrong. I'm sure immigration officers are not happy putting children in jail."
In many cases, he added, the children are detained on their own, since their parents cannot be found.
"That's absolutely inconceivable. These are not dangerous offenders. They are not to blame for anything. There has to be a way to work this out."
The bill, he concluded, "Simply makes sense. So much so that it shouldn’t even be a law. Families with children should not be put in prison – a child belongs in a classroom, not in a jail cell. I can only hope that other Knesset members will see this moral injustice for what it is."
Amnon Meranda contributed to this report
