Until October 2013, foreign nationals who applied for an Israeli stay-permit could wait for the decision in Israel without fearing deportation. A
dramatic change in two of the Ministry of Interior's protocols has resulted in a situation where such individuals may be deported even if they have pending applications. Foreign nationals who are married to Israeli residents or citizens are protected from deportation so long as their application is still pending and unless they are Palestinians, in which case they may be deported even if they are married to an Israeli and have a pending family unification application.
If this were not enough, the Ministry of Interior has also reduced the time allotted for appealing its decisions from 45 days to 21 without explanation.
It should be noted that the changes in the policy took effect without any prior notice, and other than a notice in Hebrew on the Population and Immigration Authority website, the Ministry of Interior took no effective measures to inform the affected public, who became candidates for deportation overnight.
On December 3, 2013,
HaMoked contacted the Ministry of Interior along with seven other human rights organizations, demanding it retract the changes which severely violate applicants' rights. In the letter, the organizations stressed that the new procedures compel applicants to bring multiple legal actions in the very early stages of the application process, in order to avoid deportation. The organizations also severely criticized the fact that the public was hardly informed of a decision that has such a dramatic affect on the lives of so many people.
