Child has right to grow up with parents, says ministry while trying to deport dad - Relly Sa'ar - HA'ARETZ - 08/06/2006

Kasis and his daughter in their Bat Yam home yesterday. (Nir Kafri)

Child has right to grow up with parents, says ministry while trying to deport dad

By Relly Sa'ar

When it comes to the right of a child to grow up with his father and mother, even if they are divorced, the Interior Ministry's Population Administration does not always practice what it preaches, as in the case of Elias Kasis, the father of a 3-year-old girl with severe mental and physical disabilities. Kasis, a Christian Arab who says he is a Jordanian citizen, married an Israeli from Jaffa almost six years ago. Five months ago, the couple divorced. "Some two months ago, I went to the Population Administration office in Tel Aviv to extend the validity of my temporary Israeli ID card, as I have done for the past years in keeping with the gradual process [of becoming a citizen]," he said. "To my astonishment, my ID card was suddenly taken from me, and in its place, I was given a deportation order - a letter from the Interior Ministry ordering me to leave the country within seven days."

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Kasis, 32, said the Interior Ministry ordered his deportation "within an hour, and with absolutely no consideration for the fact that I'm the father of a child who is very attached to me." The right of a child to grow up with parents is derived from the basic right to a family life. Professional therapists will even testify to the severe mental damage a child can suffer when one of his parents suddenly disappears from his life. The Interior Ministry also recognized the universal human right to parent-child bonds. About two years ago, the Population Administration adopted a policy of not deporting non-Israeli parents who had divorced their Israeli spouses in order to minimize the damage to their children, who are not responsible for their parents' separation. Under the policy, a non-Israeli who is divorced from his or her Israeli spouse is not entirely stripped of citizenship - a move that would lead to immediate deportation: If the couple divorces after two years or more of marriage - about half the time it takes a foreigner who marries an Israeli to obtain Israeli citizenship - the administration's committee on humanitarian issues must consider granting the foreign parent legal status here. According to the policy adopted by the administration, which undertook to uphold such practices in a High Court of Justice debate some two years ago, if the foreign parent "maintains close and ongoing ties with the child, and takes care of child-support payments," and if the committee is told by a social worker that cutting the child off from the parent would cause "significant harm," he or she should not be deported. Kasis' attorney, Yael Katz-Mestbaum, noted that "in March, a month after the couple divorced, Kasis and his former wife asked the committee on humanitarian issues to grant him citizenship status in light of his close ties with his daughter. Therefore, the attorney added, "there was no logic behind the Interior Ministry's decision to order the father's deportation from Israel, and make him wait for the committee's decision outside of the country's borders." Indeed, the ministry's decision failed to stand up in court; and when Katz-Mestbaum petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court against the deportation, the Population Administration retracted its decision, informing the court that Kasis would not be deported before the committee made a decision on his case. Kasis said he will fight with all he has to maintain his right to raise his daughter. "When I received the deportation order, I felt degraded," he said. "I was naive to think that the state would recognize the fact that I'm an individual who contributes to Israeli society. I have been a Civil Guard volunteer for years. I have a responsible job, and I am in charge of streetlight maintenance for three cities. I feel it's my right to live in Israel, and I have a duty as a father to raise my daughter," he said. "I want to ask the interior minister, Roni Bar-On, if he would act any differently were he in my position. Would the honorable minister agree to abandon his child and move to a different country?" Population Administration spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said in response that "as a rule, the Interior Ministry customarily takes all circumstances into consideration, including the period of the gradual process [of obtaining citizenship] and the couple's common children. In such cases, each request is examined on its own merits," she said. "The matter of Elias Kasis will be discussed by the interministerial committee on June 20, as we have undertook to do." In the state's response to the court, Kasis is defined as a Jordanian citizen; the Hadad said, however, that "Kasis is a citizen of the Palestinian Authority."