First Filipino deported as ICE ramps up arrests

Rey Galleon

REY GALLEON had just dropped off his 9-year old child off at school not knowing that later that day he would become the first Filipino to be deported since Donald Trump took office.

Galleon, a former crewman, had lived in the U.S. for seven years without the proper papers. His wife and children eventually joined him. 

Galleon came home to discover strangers interviewing his apartment neighbors trying to find the whereabouts of Galleon and his wife. Not knowing they were ICE agents, Galleon allowed himself to be questioned. 

He was arrested but they allowed him to go into his apartment to change his clothes. While inside, he warned his wife. His wife and younger child were able to slip out the back door to escape being arrested.

The immigration agents took Galleon to their office in Long Beach where they gave him an ultimatum: detention or deportation.

He was then escorted to Los Angeles International Airport, forced to use his own money to purchase a ticket and by 10 p.m. he was on a Philippine-bound plane.

It wasn't until he reached Manila was he able to call his wife and the Los Angeles-based Pilipino Workers Center (PWC).

PWC said the nonprofit could have helped Galleon if he had taken the proper steps.  With two US citizen children and no criminal record, they said he may have had a chance to fight off the deportation orders.

ICE agents intentionally intimidate their targets and never tell them their rights, PWC said.

“ICE, if you interact with them, are trying to get you to sign your own voluntary departure. He was asking for legal assistance and they were ignoring that and in the end they gave him false options," said Aqui Soriano Versoza of the Pilipino Workers Center.

"There was a bond process. If he was able to connect to legal services like here at PWC, we could've galvanized legal support and community support so that he could've gotten out on bond,” she added.

Galleon's deportation brings attention to an often-overlooked demographic: one of an estimated 1.5 million Asian immigrants in the U.S. without the proper documentation. Most of the attention has been directed to immigrants from Mexico and Central America. There are about 416,000 Asians without legal status in California.

Undocumented Asians prefer to keep a low profile, hoping that ICE continue to focus their actions on Latinos. But Galleon's arrest and deportation might signal a change in that thinking.

Galleon is not the first Asian to be deported since Trump became president, nor will he be the last. But the fear that makes them reluctant to speak out or join protests, is no less real in the Asian community. Added to this is the shame associated with being deported and makes Asians shy away from any legal aid such as offered by PWC and other legal groups.

Maybe this will force the AAPI community to seek alliances with other ethnic groups, not only over immigration but on other issues that may affect employment, housingm education, justice and inequality.

Jose Vargas asks government for protection against deportation

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS, who we last saw at the Texas border with Mexico (See earlier blog below) has kept himself busy. 

Days after speaking at the Asian American Journalists Association's annual convention held in Washington D.C., Vargas and 10 other undocumented immigrants held a press conference to put themselves on the line and to push the Obama administration to act on immigration reform and the status of the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. In doing so, he puts himself at risk of immediate deportation.

The ball is now in the court of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson at which time deportation would be delayed or immediate. The decision could come any day.

The Pulitzer-prize winning journalist came out of the shadows in 2011 to become one of the leading spokesman for undocumented immigrants and immigration reform.

Here's the CNN report of August 21:

(CNN) -- Filmmaker and activist Jose Antonio Vargas and 10 others asked the U.S. government on Wednesday to halt deportation proceedings against undocumented immigrants like themselves who have strong and productive ties to the United States.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, they requested that he defer such punitive action and then ask President Barack Obama to consider "administrative relief" to those "who are integral members of our evolving American community."

Vargas and the others said in their letter that they represent just a few of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

"Often, we're treated as abstractions, nameless and faceless, subjects of debate rather than individuals with families, hopes, fears, and dreams," they wrote.

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"Over the past decades, we have been working, worshiping in churches, going to school, and contributing to the communities we call home. We love, fight for, and pledge allegiance to an America whose flag does not recognize us," they added.

In a statement, Johnson's office did not mention the letter, but said he has "been taking a hard look" at "tough issues" around shortcomings in immigration policy and working to submit recommendations to Obama within "the confines of existing law."

Customs and Border Patrol agents detained Vargas, also an award-winning journalist, last month in McAllen, Texas, after learning of his immigration status.

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He was there to call attention to the plight of tens of thousands of migrant youth from Central America, many of them unaccompanied, who have streamed across the southern border this year.

The surge has strained border services and reignited the debate over immigration reform in Washington, a cause that Vargas promotes.

A decision by Johnson to grant the request would delay any deportation proceedings with the hope that Obama would then use his executive authority to expand deportation protections or that Congress would agree to an overhaul of immigration law.

Obama used his executive authority in 2012 to grant work authorization for two years or more for those who came to the United States as children. Vargas missed the age eligibility by only months.

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Jose Antonio Vargas: An undocumented American

Jose Antonio Vargas

JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS, a Filipino immigrant, may be the poster child for the thousands of undocumented people awaiting action from President Obama that may legalize their status.

And, oh yeah, he won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize as a member of team of Washington Post journalists covering the Virginia Tech shootings. In 2011, in a moving essay published in the New York Times, he revealed his status as an "undocumented American." Note the terminology. Those are his words Vargas prefers to use.

Since that essay he has become an activist in support of the undocumented Americans. He has formed an organization Define American, challenging the legal concept of American. Are Americans defined by a set of papers, birth, or is an American someone who thinks, believes and lives as Americans, like
Vargas has done since he was 12 years old when he was sent to live with his grandparents in the San Francisco Bay Area. It wasn't until he was 16 that he learned that he was in this country without papers. He attended local elementary and high schools and graduated from San Francisco State.

Since he is over the age of 30, he doesn't qualify for the Dream Act that legalized the status of the children who brought here at an early age by their undocumented parents. Their being in this country illegally, the act says, was not their fault or their intention. Vargas is speaking up for people like himself who were raised to be Americans; who believe they are Americans and who, by their values and mores, are American,

Vargas got himself in a pickle last week when -- as a freelancer -- went into the border town of McAllen, Texas to lend support and record the plight of the thousands of Central American young people who tried to cross the border fleeing the gangs and violence that have taken over their countries.

In a prepared statement, he said: "As an unaccompanied child migrant myself, I came to McAllen, Texas, to shed a light on children who, in parts of America and many in the news media are actively turning their backs on."

Never having been in that part of the country, he was surprised at the level of militarization of the Texas border. There are checkpoints on all the roads leaving Allen as if it was in the Gaza strip. While they were glad to see him, one woman was prompted to ask him, "How will you get out?"

As expected, when he tried to board a flight out of town, he was asked for his ID. All he had was a Philippines passport, which apparently wasn't good enough. He was detained. Fortunately, a few hours later he was released with orders to appear before an immigration judge at a future date.

Homeland Security, taking note of his well-known status, was quick to issue a statement that he was not arrested or charged with anything. In essence, they said they had other priorities that demanded their attention and the status of one individual who was deemed non-violent and who did not have a criminal record, can be dealt with later.

Vargas' documentary "Documented" aired on CNN earlier this summer and will probably be aired in other time slots. Watch for it.

If his purpose was to bring attention to the plight of the Central American children, Vargas has certainly done that. Their hope is that they will be granted refugee status so they can remain in the U.S.A.

Ironically, the fact that thousands of these children were apprehended at the border is a strong sign that the efforts put forth to prevent illegal immigration is working.

The president has asked Congress for another $3.5 billion to make sure the children are afforded their due process (that, too, is the American way) and if necessary, send them back where they must choose to be gang members or get killed.

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