Israel deports Filipina worker, Israeli-born son

OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: Israel has deported a Filipina migrant worker and her Israeli-born teenage son who has never set foot in the Philippines, after 11th hour legal appeals failed, a rights group and authorities said on Tuesday.

She is among some 600 workers from the Southeast Asian nation who activists say could face deportation over a loss of residency status. They include those who breached the conditions of their residency by starting families in the country.

The families and supporters say deporting the children to a country which they have never seen and whose languages they do not speak is a cruel policy. Rosemarie Perez was arrested by immigration officials along with her 13-year-old son Rohan last week for remaining in the country illegally.

They had been taken to Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv on Sunday night after an appeals court upheld their deportation, Beth Franco of the United Children of Israel (UCI) association said.

But they were taken off the plane after their lawyer requested an urgent hearing on their status in a bid to have them remain in Israel. On Monday evening, they were escorted to Ben-Gurion airport where they were put on a flight to Bangkok for onward connection to Manila, Franco said.

Israel’s immigration authority confirmed in a statement they had been deported, adding Perez had been in the country illegally for 12 years and that all court appeals had been exhausted. Franco, also originally from the Philippines, said other mothers now feared they and their children could soon be deported over the same policy.