Last update - 00:00 10/01/2007
Foreign workers who lose status because of employer crime won't face arrest
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Immigration police will no longer arrest foreign workers who lose their legal status in Israel due to a crime or oversight on the part of their employer, the State Prosecution told the High Court of Justice earlier this week.
The prosecution's announcement came in response to a petition submitted by the migrant worker's association Kav Laoved against the state, along with a temporary injunction. The group had demanded that the court order the state to explain why it refused to stop arresting foreign workers due to their employers' crimes.
The petition, which was submitted in August 2006 by attorney Boaz Ben-Tsur on behalf of Kav Laoved, claimed that foreign workers were being arrested en masse and having their freedom taken away for no fault of their own.
According to the group, workers are often arrested when their employers neglect to pay the required fee to the state for hiring foreign workers or when their employers turn them over to work for another person without informing the proper authorities. Workers are also arrested when their legal status is stripped due to an employer's death or if the employer goes bankrupt.
The state initially refuted the petition by saying Kav Laoved had the right to appeal specific incidents of arrests due to employer crimes. The state also claimed that it was working to change the situation, adding that in many cases workers are not arrested but rather transferred to another employer.
Ben Tsur rejected the state's claims, and in order to illustrate the extent of the problem, prepared a report on an incident brought to the organization's attention in November. According to the report, a farmer from Moshav Noga withheld the wages of his Thai workers and then had his employers' license stripped without any notification to the workers. Without the knowledge, the workers lost their legal status and were arrested within two weeks.
The state ruled Monday that "a worker that becomes illegal because of a violation by his employer will not be held in custody. If he has not yet been arrested, he will not be arrested. If he has already been arrested, he will be released."