'Abandoned' toddler reunited with mom

The two-and-a-half year old daughter of jailed foreign worker Joel Manah (from Ghana) was reunited with her mother on Tuesday. Her father remained in prison.

May Manah had been left at a Haifa police station Monday after her father, an illegal worker who has been in Israel for 14 years, was arrested Sunday night.

"After hearing the reports in the media, the mother came to collect her child," said Romm Lewkowicz, spokesman for the Hotline for Migrant Workers. "However, the question now is whether the family will have to be separated. The mother is Filipina and the father from Ghana - if he is deported back to Africa, what will happen to the child?"

According to Manah, he and his wife separated in October and the child had been cared for by a babysitter on a day basis. The babysitter said the mother had not been in touch with May in recent months.

"The police are inhuman," said Lewkowicz. "They come in the middle of the night, break down doors, and separate families."

Immigration Police said using a child to get an illegal foreign worker out of jail was an increasingly common tactic, known as a "baby visa." Under Israeli law, a minor cannot be left without a guardian.