Jerusalem ? Israel moved Sunday to deport the offspring of hundreds of migrant workers, mostly small children who were born in Israel, speak Hebrew and have never seen their parents’ native countries.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new policy was intended to stem a flood of illegal aliens, whose children receive state-funded education and health care benefits, and to defend Israel’s Jewish identity.

“We don’t want to create an incentive for the inflow of hundreds of thousands of illegal migrant workers,” he said.

Critics, including some government officials, said the decision would punish innocent children by sending them to impoverished or insecure nations that their parents had left in search of better lives in Israel.