The Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel (COHSI) joined the recent wave of support for granting permanent residency to children of migrant workers in a letter delivered on Saturday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the letter, the group requested that the state refrain from expelling children that did not meet the government's criteria that would allow them to stay in Israel.
Israeli cabinet Ministers adopted the recommendation made by an inter-ministerial committee last month to grant legal status to some 800 children of migrant workers and deport another 400 others within 21 days, a ruling that has caused much controversy as of late.
"We are survivors of the Holocaust," the letter said. "Like the rest of the residents of the state, we listened with dismay and anguish when we heard the government's decision to adopt the interministerial committee's recommendation to deport 400 children who do not meet the committee's criteria."
"Those of us who survived the Holocaust witnessed the selection and separation of children from their parents. We, in particular, cannot see pictures of the unfortunate children who are not responsible for their own situation and be apathetic," the letter said, adding that these images fill them with feelings of shame.
Other criteria that the committee adopted regarding the children include the stipulation that children who are allowed to stay must speak Hebrew, and if they were not born in Israel, they must have arrived in Israel before the age of 13.
The agreement applies only to children whose parents entered Israel legally. Those who do not meet the criteria will be asked to leave the county within a month.
"We cannot accept that a Jewish government could operate without a conscience and in such an inhumane way," the COHSI letter continued. "These children were born here and they study in state schools. They cannot be the ones to pay the price as part of an attempt to solve the economic and employment problems of the state."
Families with children who meet the criteria were asked to submit a request, attached to documentation, to the Interior Ministry within 21 days, according to an interministerial committee's recommendations.
After aid groups claimed that 21 days is an unrealistically short period of time, the Interior Ministry added a clause giving those who meet the criteria an extra 21 days to produce documentation, if they are found to qualify for the status after their first request.
The Interior Ministry opened its doors on Sunday and began receiving documents the families who are residing in Israel illegally. On this fist day, tens of families have arrived at the offices in Tel Aviv as well as several other families to offices in Haifa and Be'er Sheva.
