At least 300 people demonstrated in Tel Aviv July 11 to protest the newly formed Oz (Courage) Unit of 200 immigration cops and recent raids in Tel Aviv. Demonstrators carried signs in Hebrew, English, and Spanish. Some children held signs saying, “Israel is my home.”

The Oz Unit arrested 300 workers, both legal and undocumented, July 1 near Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station under the “Hadera-Gadera” law. It requires non-Jewish immigrants—even those with work permits—to live outside Tel Aviv and the towns around it.

Israeli law recognizes two categories of immigrants: those of Jewish descent who are considered potential citizens, and “foreign workers,” that is, immigrants with or without papers who are not Jewish.

At the end of 2008 there were an estimated 285,000 “foreign workers” in Israel, some 97,000 of them without work or residency permits. The same year 3,300 undocumented workers were deported, compared to 4,000 in 2007 and 21,000 in 2003. Among the largest groups of these immigrants are workers from Sudan, Ivory Coast, and Eritrea. There are also many from the Philippines, China, Thailand, Romania, India, and Latin America.

—SETH GALINSKY