The Population and Immigration Authority has started to defend in court the ban it has imposed on foreign workers forming couple relationships.

When it learns of such a relationship, the authority insists that one partner leave Israel as a condition for extending the work visa of the other one.

Until now, however, it has apparently backed down every time an appeal was filed against this demand. According to Kav LaOved - Worker's Hotline, in the 13 cases over the past year in which the organization filed an appeal, the authority backed down and allowed both partners to stay in Israel.

But in response to another appeal that Kav LaOved filed this week, the authority did not withdraw but instead filed a response to the Jerusalem appeals tribunal, in which it stated that the two partners in question are foreign nursing workers "who are conducting a relationship that contradicts the respondent's procedures."

The response goes on to say, "There is growing concern that the petitioner and the baby's father are conducting life as a couple and a family in Israel in a manner that violates the authority's rules." [...]

Kav LaOved said, "This is a benighted policy that is the ultimate dehumanization of migrant workers in Israel. It's hard to understand how the hands of the lawyers and the decision makers don't tremble when they sign off on sentences like, 'The appellants are living together against the rules,' or 'There's a suspicion they are forming a family unit,' as if a family unit is no less than a terror cell."

The population authority doesn't explicitly forbid relationships between foreign workers, but forbids two first-degree relatives to stay in Israel at the same time.

This ban was set in 2013 as part of the regulations for employing foreign nursing care workers, on that grounds that such a practice "encourages settlement in Israel."