TEL AVIV: In the
heat of the summer, Sivan Noel and her sister Michal say they rarely venture
outside of their family's small, basement apartment in Tel Aviv. The two girls,
11 and nine, risk being deported to the family's home country, the Philippines,
even though they've never set foot there. "I was born here," said
Sivan, the 11-year-old. "It's really unfair that after being born here and
having a family, friends, school and studies, we are being told that... we now
must leave to a place that we hardly know."

They and hundreds
of other Filipino families in Israel are caught up in a legal battle that has
put them at risk of deportation. Many of the 28,000 Filipinos in Israel arrived
to work as caregivers and domestic helpers, but according to the United
Children of Israel (UCI) association, some 600 families could now face
expulsion over a loss of residency status. The issue holds particular resonance
in Israel, where there are long-term fears about maintaining a Jewish majority
in the country founded as a national homeland for Jews in the wake of the
Holocaust. But children such as Sivan and Michal pose a special case.

They were born in
Israel, attend school in the country, speak and write on social media in Hebrew
and dress in the same tank tops, shorts and sandals as other children in Tel
Aviv. Their mother, Ramela Noel, arrived legally in the country in 2003 as a
domestic worker. She later met her husband, who is also Filipino, and became pregnant
with Sivan, the oldest of the two girls. She then faced a heartbreaking choice:
either leave the country or send her child to the Philippines in order to
maintain her visa, as spelled out in her employment contract.

'I started
crying'

Noel said she
initially chose to remain and send her child back to the Philippines to live
with her sister, Sivan's aunt. "When I gave birth to Sivan and they put
her on my tummy, that's when I started crying," the 39-year-old said, the
memory again bringing tears to her eyes.

She couldn't
bring herself to send the baby away, so the family began to live clandestinely.
The two girls have no legal status and their parents cannot renew their work
visas without risking expulsion. Noel and her husband scrape out a living
cleaning homes. "Every time we go out on the street - the fear that I have
every time I go on the street - it's terrifying," she said. This week, a
mother and her 13-year-old child were detained in southern Tel Aviv ahead of a
planned deportation.

Since the start
of the year, members of 36 families, 24 of them Filipino, have been arrested.
They were released on the condition they leave by August 1, but no one has been
deported for now, according to UCI, created to help those involved. The adults
were arrested for being in the country illegally, but their children were
allowed to finish the school year, according to a statement from Israel's
immigration authority, which declined an interview request.

With the school
vacation underway, the threat of deportation is back. "Israel encouraged
them to come. There are recruitment services abroad for them," said Sigal
Rozen, one of the founders of the Israeli organization Hotline for Refugees and
Migrants. Filipinos were brought to Israel to fill a labor shortage. One member
of UCI who spoke on condition of anonymity said she cared for the elderly for
nine years. "What do you expect me to do in nine years? Not to have sex,
not to have love?" she said.

'Not make me
forget'

In 2006 and in
2010, while facing criticism to act, Israeli authorities granted permanent
visas to nearly 5,000 people, said Rozen. Catholic church heads have joined
condemnations of the deportations, asking in a statement: "Does this
policy respect the contribution of these women's labor to the Israeli
society?" Filipinos recently held a protest in Tel Aviv, supported by
Israelis. "We can't send children away," said 83-year-old Drora
Lustiger, who said her husband survived the Holocaust.

Nearby, separated
from the crowd by a security cordon, around a dozen counter-protesters called
for the deportations to move ahead. "I'm concerned about the majority of
the Jewish in Israel," said Sigal Sudai. "In many other countries in
the world, when their visa ends, they go back to their land." But Sivan
and her sister, who have never travelled, say they consider Israel home.
"It would feel like I'm in a foreign place, a place that I don't
know," said Sivan. "Maybe I will meet new friends or have new
memories there, but it will not make me forget that I have friends here, and a
family."- AFP