The Illegal Israeli Invasion

"[These jobs] offer the opportunity to take a year off and travel while working at kiosks selling items such as beauty products, remote-controlled helicopters, and heating pads."
"CBSA officers have reported targets employing counter-surveillance techniques during surveillance and that interviews with kiosk workers are rarely productive as their 'conduct after capture' training has prepared them for providing information of limited value."
Canada Border Security Agency report: Israeli Nationals Working in Kiosks across Canada

"It's clearly a problem and I don't want to excuse it or be dismissive of it. But it is, relatively speaking, fairly benign. And it flows from a particular convergence of circumstances in Israel."
Shimon Fogel, CEO, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Canada

"My client didn't own the company. What happens is they're promised certain jobs and they came here to work. He was essentially working the business but not earning any money."
Leora Shemesh, Lawyer for Iftach Jacob, kiosk worker, Halifax

"Believe me, I was an Israeli soldier and now I'm studying law. I didn't break the law on purpose."
"I know not to trust anyone ... you should always check and double check everything. I just wanted to have fun in other countries."
Israeli law student, former kiosk worker in Canada

It might have appeared on the face of it, to represent an opportunity to see other parts of the world, having completed the obligatory two-to-three-year military conscription at age 18 for young Israelis released from service and on the cusp of beginning university. Taking a year or a summer off between military service and nose-to-the-study grindstone seems like a relieving break, and many young Israelis take to the idea.

They're offered temporary jobs working at malls all over Canada. Between last November and February, busts relating to illegal workers involving Israelis at malls in Thunder Ba y, Vancouver, Burnaby, Dieppe, N.B. Halifax, St. John's Fredericton and Ottawa, were documened by the Immigration and Refugee Board. What represents a year of travel for young Israelis between their military service and university attendance, represents illegal workers in Canada.

An extremely large 2009 bust of illegal Israeli workers in the United States led to Canada becoming a popular destination for these kiosk workers. According to the CBSA report no indications have surfaced of any implicating ties to serious or violent organized crime groups. The scheme, they claim, is one representing "employment fraud and tax evasion". 

Recruitment conventions and websites serve to pair workers with jobs in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Workers earn commission, are promised between $1,500 and $3,000 weekly at the kiosks, quoting a U.S. estimate. Last summer, 25-year-old Iftach Jacob was charged with employing foreign nationals without authorization, failing the conditions of a visitor's permit; charges later dropped for a conditional discharge for working without authorization.

CBSA spokeswoman Maja Graham stated that "a small minority" of kiosk workers are foreign nationals and "a smaller fraction of that number are working without a work permit", placing matters in proportional perspective. Those charged were issued exclusion orders to leave Canada and not return for at least a year, according to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

And one is left to ponder the other realities that there are 'visitors' to Canada representing the Gaza-placed Hamas terrorist group who work underground in illegal smuggling activities, ranging from profitable smuggling of tobacco and drug products to weapons smuggling. The profits are said to be in the hundreds of thousands, and go directly to Hamas and Hezbollah. No word reaches the public whether there are any apprehensions of these smugglers, whether they are arrested and brought to justice.

That's a perspective of an entirely different kind. Like those who arrive with or without visitors' visas, from the Middle East or North Africa, and ply their trade of recruiting impressionable young Muslims in mosques, madrassas or community centres, with the promotion of martyrdom as a great honour in taking part as a mujahadin in the battle for Islamist jihad.

Areas which might and possibly should hugely represent far greater emphasis on safety and security in illegal employment within Canada.