A. The graduated procedure
(1) The main and most common procedure is the procedure for granting status for the spouse of an Israeli citizen – procedure no. 5.2.008 – i.e. the “graduated procedure.” According to this procedure, an immigrant woman and an Israeli man who married abroad and presented the Ministry of Interior with valid papers initiate a process for obtaining a status for the foreign spouse. This procedure takes four and a half years. The first step includes filling out a form and submitting a full list of documents required by the Ministry of Interior. Parallel to this, the woman receives a B1 visa, usually for the period of six months.
(2) The second stage entails an interview with the couple in order to ensure the genuineness of their marriage. If the Ministry of Interior is convinced that the marriage is real, the foreign woman receives an A5 visa.
(3) This visa is to be renewed once a year; both partners have to arrive at the Ministry of Interior for the renewal, as the applicant is the Israeli citizen husband. Thus, the woman is dependent on her spouse for her visa renewal every year.
(4) After the couple has proven throughout the whole process (four and a half years) that their marriage is genuine and that the center of their lives is in Israel, the woman will receive Israeli citizenship.
It is important to note that parallel to this procedure, there are other processes, according to which the granting of a status occurs in a similar manner. One is a procedure for obtaining status for a foreign partner of an Israeli citizen, when the couple lives as common-law partners, including couples of the same sex. According to this procedure, the foreign woman will receive a B1 visa for a period of three years (renewed annually). At the end of this period, and subject to proof of the genuineness of the relationship and proof that the center of their life is in Israel, the woman will receive an A5 visa for four additional years. At the end of this period, she will receive permanent residency.
The second procedure is obtaining status for a spouse of a permanent resident. Here, too, the process is lengthy. The female spouse will receive a B1 visa in Israel for a period of 27 months. Only after this period she will receive an A5 visa for two additional years (renewed annually), at the end of which she will ultimately receive permanent residency.
(5) A central aspect of this procedure is the woman’s dependency on her Israeli spouse. If a change occurs in the relationship, the husband does not appear at the Ministry of Interior, or if some documents are missing and the couple failed to present them – the process halts.
(6) In case there is documentation of domestic violence, the Ministry of Interior deals with the application with great care, and may pose difficulties in the process of renewing the visa.
(7) Moreover, in most cases, the woman will be required to leave the country immediately without the Ministry of Interior considering the fact that she has to first exhaust her rights, and/or that there may be circumstances which entitle her for a visa, and/or considering the procedures of the Ministry of Interior regarding cases of violence:
B. Procedure of halting the graduated procedure for obtaining status for partners of Israeli citizens as a result of violence on the part of the Israeli partner. Following numerous cases of foreign women trapped in violent relationships and who are afraid to complain lest the immediate result would be deportation, and following legal procedures and a public campaign, the Ministry of Interior adopted the following procedure:
Procedure of halting the graduated procedure for obtaining status for partners of Israeli citizens as a result of violence on the part of the Israeli partner, procedure no. 5.2.0017A. This procedure recognizes, for the first time, the fact that immigrant battered women should be protected, establishing a mechanism (although not sufficient) for arranging the status of women who left violent relationships. A woman with an Israeli child and an A5 visa before leaving the relationship (in contrast to a period of two years required in other cases of separation in order to examine the visa extension), and who proves she had been subjected to violence, will be referred to a discussion at the inter-ministerial committee for humanitarian affairs. The committee may extend the status the woman holds for two additional years, following which it will reexamine her case or, alternatively, it can decide that her status will be extended for an additional period, following which she will receive permanent residence. The court ruled that a woman’s status cannot be examined by the committee over and over again, and that following a certain period, she will be granted permanent residency. A proof of violence can be obtained in several ways: a stay at a shelter for battered women for at least one month; a protection order against the Israeli partner; filing a police complaint; confirmation from the department of social services at the local municipality or from the Center for Preventing Domestic Violence.
C. Halting the process of obtaining status for partners of Israeli citizens
A woman whose relationship with an Israeli man has ended can apply to receive status under two additional circumstances: in the case she and the Israeli partner have children, or in case of widowhood.
(1) In case of a divorce, the woman has to have an A5 visa and half of the period of the graduated process must already have passed (two years). Another condition is that the children are in her custody or that the “couple has children who are in the custody of the foreign partner or that the foreign partner has a close and continuous relationship with the children and cares and provides for their needs, and a professional opinion by a public servant or a professional has decreed that the leaving of the foreign partner will cause significant harm to the children.”
(2) In case of widowhood, there is a distinction between whether the woman has children from the Israeli partner or not. If the couple had children who remained with the mother, then the precondition is that the widowed mother has an A5 visa and has already started the graduated procedure. When children are involved, there is no minimum time limit, except the requirement that the graduated procedure is initiated as a condition for obtaining status. In the case that the woman does not have any children from her deceased partner, the procedure is stricter. The widowed woman has to have an A5 visa, meet the requirement of the time limit; i.e. that half of the graduated procedure has passed, and attend a hearing at the Ministry of Interior. The hearing is intended, among others, to examine if her attachment to Israel is stronger than to her country of origin.
Trafficked women
The procedure for arranging status for victims of trafficking on humanitarian basis number 6.3.0007 enables a trafficking victim to submit a request for a “rehabilitation year” – a B1 permit. This permit will allow her to remain in Israel for a period of one year to rehabilitate and work. The request is submitted to the Bureau of Population Authority and transferred to the person appointed for border control and the head of the Population and Immigration Authority and border checkpoints. A woman not staying in a shelter for trafficking victims will have to prove that she is a victim of trafficking. In requests according to this procedure, legal aid can be provided through public legal aid departments.
Victims of trafficking and/or violence to whom these procedures are not applicable can submit an application for status (even a temporary status or a temporary visiting visa) on humanitarian grounds to the inter-ministerial committee at the Ministry of Interior, according to their specific case, whether they are in a rehabilitation process or proceeding to exhaust their rights in different areas, such as labor laws, family laws, or damages compensation.
