TEL AVIV : For hundreds of Chinese workers, a new life in the promised land of Israel has turned into a nightmare. Many of them borrowed thousands of dollars to pay for work visas that later turned out to be invalid.

And now threatened with deportation from Israel, they are afraid of returning to China where they will also be threatened if they do not cough up the money they have borrowed.

Mai and Chung have already sent one child back to China. And now they live in fear that their other son will soon follow.

The Israeli government says 5-year-old Ruohsuan is an illegal resident because although he was born in Israel and speaks fluent Hebrew, his parents are here without a visa, earmarking him for deportation.

Mai, an illegal resident in Israel who did not want to give her full name, said: "It will be bad if he is deported. All his friends are here and he speaks the local language. We try to speak Mandarin to him, but he doesn't like to speak Mandarin."

Eight years ago, Mai paid 10,000 American dollars to get a one-year visa to work in Israel.

But she had only just stepped off the plane when she was fired for not speaking English or Hebrew and told to find her own job.

Mai said: "The company brought a lot of people with no intention of finding work for them. The workers had to find the jobs themselves. For some people, they did arrange for jobs, but many had nothing."

It is a story that is all too familiar to the nearly 11,000 Chinese workers in Israel. Many of them are underpaid, forced to work long hours and threatened with deportation if they complain.

Most arrived in Israel 20 years ago when the security situation between Israelis and Palestinians deteriorated and a new labour force was being sought.

Mr Zu starts his 14-hour working day at four-thirty in the morning. He lives in a caravan camp and pockets less than the average Israeli salary.

Two years ago he paid 31,000 dollars for a five-year work visa, which at the time seemed like a clever business plan.

But the employment agency did not tell him that the visa would not be valid past 2010, in line with an Israeli government decision to stem the inflow of foreign workers.

Mr Li is also angry and disappointed. In China, he had his own textile business but he came to Israel on the advice of a friend who said it was a great way to make money.

He has not seen his wife and children for four years because he cannot afford the air ticket home.

Mr Li, a construction worker, who also did not want to give his full name, said: "It was not worth it for me because after four years, I have only saved US$12,000. I would make more than that in China after four years."

It is this cycle of debt that keeps most of the Chinese workers here.

Organisations like Kav La Oved, a hotline for migrant workers, are trying hard to warn foreigners of the risk of fly-by-night agencies with big promises and little truth.

Nilly Gorin of Kav La Oved said: "If they don't pay back the loans, they can't go back home - I have heard this many times from people.

"They told me if they go back now, they will lose their house and they will lose their parents' house. They owe money to so many people, they just can't show their faces."

That is why Mai and Chung, and hundreds of others like them, do not know what to do. The promised land has become a place of disillusionment and they do not know whether to stay or leave.

- CNA/al