Journalist
Israel Aims for Unwanted Immigrants
  RAMLE, Israel, Jan 17 (AFP) - Romanian Kira Dino sits with his head in his hands in Masiyahu prison, the last stop for illegal immigrants before deportation. As the economy plummets, Israel has set its sights on booting out of the country 150,000 illegals like Dino.

Dino, has lived in Israeli for the past eight years, and like many other illegals from eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, he has taken odd jobs wherever he could get them, mainly building houses and working in markets. But unlike others, Dino says he had just started an acting career. He was filmed in an Israeli movie recently, and now is being ejected from the country before his screen debut.

"I was picked up by the police on my way to another audition," says the 31-year-old.

As Israel's economy slumps to a new low, with unemployment hitting a record 9.9 percent and the shekel dropping to an unheard of 4.542 to the dollar, the government has been clutching at straws for ways to bring up its economy.

One immediate solution, according to Labor and Social Affairs Minister Shlomo Benizri, is to slash the number of foreigner workers in the country, estimated at around 250,000, of whom only 100,000 are working legally.

The government has cut the pool of permits for foreign workers in 2002 to 40,000, less than half that of the year before, in a bid to hand the jobs over to those Israelis desperate enough to cope with often difficult working conditions.

The statistics bureau said 251,000 of Israel's active civilian work force of 2.5 million people were out of work at the end of November, the highest rate since the Jewish state was founded in 1948. In addition, the rate has been climbing steadily from 8.7 percent in April. Around 34,000 people joined the job-seekers queues in that period, the statistics bureau said.

"This is one of the toughest periods our nation has been going through," Benizri told journalists after the figures were released.

But there is another issue, says Haggai Herzl, advisor on illegal immigrants to Public Security Minister Uzi Landau.

"Employers hire the immigrants for the cheap labor. Most Israelis won't even show up for work unless they're taking home at least 2,000 US dollars a month. They rather sit home and collect unemployment benefits," says Herzl.

Most foreigners have the physically strenuous jobs in agriculture or construction that many Israelis do not want.

"Israeli Arabs will hopefully take their place in the construction industry. Their villages have the highest unemployment and many of them are skilled in construction," Herzl says.

The foreigners were lured to the country by the higher wages to replace the droves of Palestinian workers whom Israel shut out under the strict the closure of Palestinian territories at the start of the 16-month uprising, or intifada, against the occupation.

Some of them actually entered the country legally on short-term work permits, staying on illegally after those permits expired, while others slipped into the workforce after entering the country as tourists.

Now, as the intifada drives both Palestinian and Israeli economies into the ground, Israel has chosen to push them out, rounding up those who remain illegally in Masiyahu prison where they are earmarked for return home. The prison holds 300 illegal workers at any time, with 20 to 30 shipped out each day, says Herzl.

"Most just stay there for three days before being deported," he says.

The detainees are kept in a specially built row of caravans outside the main prison walls, where they are kept behind razor wire and tall fences.

The caravans are divided into cells, with four to six people sleeping in each one.

Some prisoners have decorated their barred cells by hanging soda cans from the ceiling just to give a homey feel, but their stay is brief before they are shipped out to restart their lives in their home countries.