Statement on Trump’s Mass Deportations: Migrant Rights are Human Rights! Defend Filipino Migrants!
Malaya Movement USA vehemently rejects the human rights violations that our kababayan have been subjected to by the Trump administration’s mass deportations.
Since Trump came into office on January 20, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has wasted no time, raiding homes, workplaces, and even churches to detain and deport any and all people they suspect to be undocumented, largely without proper judicial warrants. On January 27, just one week after Trump came into office, ABS-CBN reported that 24 Filipinos have been deported from the US, with 80 more being processed. Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” is specifically targeting sanctuary cities, where he says there will be more “collateral arrests.”
In Chicago, grassroots organizers have confirmed that 8 Filipino workers were detained last week, with 6 of them being deported a few days later. Given the speed at which these deportations were processed, it is unlikely that they were given due process.
To date, there are an estimated 370,000 to 1 million undocumented Filipino migrants in the US. During Trump’s first administration, ICE deported 3,500 Filipinos. And yet, ahead of Trump’s second inauguration, the Philippine government refused to provide adequate resources to our vulnerable kababayan. Instead, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez told undocumented Filipinos to self-deport.
It is wrong for our kababayan to be treated as criminals by the Philippine government when it’s the Philippine government’s labor export policy that forces so many Filipinos to leave home and seek work abroad in the first place, putting them in these precarious situations, or by the United States government that relies on our labor to uphold the healthcare, hospitality, and other industries.
The Trump administration plans to fast track deportations, detain thousands of immigrants, and make the process of obtaining legal status more difficult. The Philippine government’s unwillingness to support overseas Filipino migrants upholds these fascist policies, not only making them complicit, but active co-conspirators. By incriminating our kababayan, the Filipino government is deflecting blame for its own failures, instead of doing its job to protect our kababayan.
Help us fight back against Trump’s fascist regime and hold the Philippine government accountable!
Join the Tanggol Migrante (Defend Migrants) Network & Listserv: tinyurl.com/dmcnetwork
Join the Media and Communications Team: tinyurl.com/join-defendmigrants
Check out and share the Defend Migrants Campaign toolkit: tinyurl.com/dmctoolkit
Learn more about and donate to the Justice for Alma Bowman Campaign: linktr.ee/j4ab
If you are a migrant in need of support, email tanggolmigrantecampaign@gmail.com
We must get organized in order to defend one another and build the longevity of our movement to fight for our community, together.
Migrant rights are human rights! Proteksyon, hindi deportasyon!
