Yishai holds record for bringing in foreign workers

Interior Minister Eli Yishai holds the record for importing foreign workers, despite his sharp criticism of the fact that foreign workers are being let into the country.

The largest number of work visas for foreigners was issued during the years when Yishai's party, Shas, controlled the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry, which was responsible for setting the quota for foreign workers until recently.

The data was complied by the Hotline for Migrant Workers in Israel, and covers 10 years.

One of the peak years was 2008, when 118,000 new work visas were issued to foreign workers. At that time, Yishai was industry and trade minister.

Last year, responsibility for visas was transferred to the Interior Ministry, which is now led by Yishai. As interior minister, Yishai has publicly declared his intention to cut the number of new work visas issued.

However, by September, 120,000 already had been issued this year.

Earlier this month, Yishai sharply criticized the fact that foreign workers were being allowed into the country.

"Will any Israeli citizen accept foreigners being allowed in at this pace?" Yishai said during an interview on Channel 2 television. "All this pretentious goodwill, does it not endanger the Zionist enterprise of the State of Israel?

"If hundreds of thousands of foreign workers come, they will bring with them many diseases: hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis, AIDS, drugs," he warned, adding that foreign workers would be a disaster.

But the facts speak for themselves: For many years, Shas has controlled the work visas, and the number of visas has steadily grown.

The number of visas decreased in 2003, when Ehud Olmert was industry and trade minister, but it increased again in 2005, when Yishai took over the ministry.

Alongside issuing visas, the government set forward a "revolving door" policy, refusing to renew existing visas, while continuing to issue new ones.

Paradoxically, it is the legal foreign workers who are the most exploited. They pay $3,000 to $30,000 in fees to an agent, and many have to work many years just to pay them. Moreover, research has shown that many of the legal workers earn the lowest wages, much lower than minimum wage.