6-Year-Old Girl Arrested and Faces Deportation
Only two days after the school year ended, an Israel-born six-year-old girl was arrested along with her mother, a migrant worker from the Philippines, ahead of their deportation.
This is the first time a child at such a young age, which is attending kindergarten and is a part of the education system, is arrested to be deported. The Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority asked to clarify that they had waited for the school year to end before carrying out the arrest.
A.J. Mathias finished kindergarten on Friday and was planning to start first grade in two months. Her mother, Annalyn, had come to Israel legally, but lost her work permit when she had a baby.
Nearly two years ago, the government agreed to give residency status to migrants’ children and families, in accordance with criteria set by an inter-ministerial committee. The criteria was that the child had to have entered Israel before the age of 13 and to have been in the country for at least five years; that he or she was going up to first grade or higher on the day the decision was made; that the child knew Hebrew and that the parents had entered Israel legally and only subsequently lost their legal status.
For more, go to Haaretz.com
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
