MIGRANT WATCH

Filipinos in U.S. Denounce Anti-immigrant Bill

Immigrants in the United States are said to be the targets of a new bill in the U.S. Congress which essentially criminalizes undocumented persons and penalizes those who will take care of them. Given that there are four million Filipinos in the U.S. and about 60,000 Filipinos go to the U.S. yearly, it is not surprising that Filipinos are the main participants in protest actions against the proposed bill.

BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat

ANTI-SENSENBRENNER BILL: U.S.-based Filipinos join March 25 rally against the Sensenbrenner Bill, which allows crackdowns on undocumented immigrants and persons aiding them

Filipinos in the United States declared that they will support the call for a general strike called “A Day without Immigrants,” if the U.S. Senate will pass the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner Bill. Immigrants who joined the historic California march on March 25 also vowed to continue staging protests until the bill is junked.

Although media reports said that only up to 500,000 went out to protest on March 25, more than a million immigrants actually flooded the streets of Los Angeles to demand for equal rights for all immigrants, said Chito Quijano of the Los Angeles chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance).

The protest is said to be the largest mobilization in the history of California. It was organized by a broad coalition of immigrant organizations including Bayan-USA, an alliance of Filipino organizations in the U.S.

Quijano, also a health union organizer for the California Nurses Association in Los Angeles, described the march as that of the first Edsa Revolution of 1986. He said that the Filipino contingent, composed of professionals and low-wage workers, planned to march together but they did not find each other because of the thick crowd.

As early as 8 a.m., Quijano said that people filled the Olympic and Broadway avenues, the starting point of the march. The whole stretch of Broadway Avenue was already impassable by 10 a.m, he said. Filipinos were among the crowd of mainly Latinos.

HR 4437

The immigrants opposed U.S. House Resolution 4437, also known at the Sensenbrenner Bill (Border Protection, Anti-Terror, and Illegal Immigration Bill). HR 4437 was introduced by Congressman James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, on Dec. 6. The U.S. House of Representative passed this resolution with a 239 to 182 vote on Dec. 16.

In an email interview with Bulatlat, Berna Ellorin of Bayan-USA described this bill as “perhaps the most Draconian anti-immigrant bill we have seen in a long time” which “(essentially criminalizes) undocumented persons and those who offer assistance to them.”

Based on Bayan-USA statement, “the bill will criminalize caring individuals, churches, charities, community groups, and similar service organizations that give humanitarian assistance to families without legal residence status.” Moreover, it said, “the bill will also allow the government to seize the properties of these individuals and organizations because they did not thoroughly check the legal resident and immigration status of people before providing assistance.”

She said that Filipinos could be part of the “undocumented population” because the U.S. Census reports only three million Filipinos when actually there are four million of them in the U.S.

“And we have one of the largest undocumented populations in the country,” she said, given that 60,000 Filipinos enter the U.S. annually. “So we stand to be hit hard by any bill that comes our way, more than other immigrant communities.”

At present, Ellorin said, the U.S. Senate’s judiciary committee presented a version of the bill to the Senate for debate, but replaced the criminalization clause with a temporary guest worker provision. Ellorin however said that the “people’s movement in the streets needs to keep the pressure on” as the controversial clause could be reversed during the deliberations at the U.S. Senate.

Silent RP officials

Filipinos in the U.S. are active in the ongoing nationwide demonstrations denouncing immigration bills such as the Sensenbrenner Bill. They lambasted the Macapagal-Arroyo administration for not taking a position against the  criminalization of undocumented immigrants in Washington.

Quijano said, “Filipinos remain an open target for such blanket repression in host countries abroad because the Philippine government has no real program of protection for overseas Filipinos.”

In fact, based on reports from the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP), 11 foreign ministers from overseas remittance-receiving countries in Latin America have joined the campaign against the Sensenbrenner-King Bill and the fight for the legalization and upholding of civil rights of undocumented immigrants. NYCHRP commended the eleven Latin American countries – Colombia, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic – which are taking note of the critical debate in the Senate this month and "are being pro-active for the interest and protection of their nationals."

Ellorin said that these 11 foreign ministers even approached Consulate General Cecilia Rebong to remark on a definitive RP government position on the immigration debate. But she said Rebong only uttered, "just as the U.S. government does not intervene in our internal political affairs, we must refrain from intervening on this issue.”

Despite having the most overseas remittance-dependent economy in the world and ranking third among the highest labor-exporting countries, “they (Filipino officials) do nothing but be silent when it comes to protecting us from the backlash of anti-immigrant laws that the US Senate is debating on," said Robyn Rodriguez of the NYCHRP.

Rodriguez said that earlier this year, Philippine Ambassador Albert del Rosario was praising Filipinos in the U.S. for churning in a total of $5.3 billion in remittances to the Philippines in 2005 alone, comprising 60 percent of the total remittances to the Philippines. "Arroyo prioritizes the dollars that we send home, but could care less about our rights and welfare,” he said.

Earlier in 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution commemorating 100 years of sustained Filipino migration to the U.S. "It is sustained because the economic crisis in the Philippines remains unresolved," said Bayan-USA chair Kawal Ulanday, who participated in a hunger strike called by the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition in San Francisco.

"The Arroyo administration has a long history of taking from but not giving back to OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) and because of this pattern we see a record-breaking number of OFW deaths, disappearances, and human rights violations under her regime," Rodriguez said. “This is a glaring reason why there is such a loud clamor from overseas Filipinos who want Arroyo out of office."

Filipinos’ force

With the Philippine officials’ silence on the issue, Ellorin said that “it is the people’s organizations that have been conducting critical work educating, organizing, and mobilizing compatriots around this issue.” He said that a discussion guide on the Sensenbrenner Bill is posted on Bayan-USA’s website at www.bayanusa.org.”

Rodriguez said that these have been exemplified by the massive turn-out of protest actions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Washington DC.

Justice 4 Immigrants Filipino Coalition (J4I) has been at the forefront of organizing initiatives in the Filipino community against the Sensenbrenner Bill when it passed the House vote last December. Aside from hosting meetings about the bill for the last three months, J4I is also initiating more critical action from Filipinos demanding earned legalization, swift family reunification and an end to criminalization and deportation of immigrants. The coalition is composed of concerned Filipino organizations and individuals in New York and neighboring areas such as Philippine Forum, NYCHRP, Anakbayan Filipino Youth, Kinding Sindaw Cultural Troupe, Migrante International, Movement for a Free Philippines, Sandiwa Filipino Youth and the Critical Filipino/Filipina Studies Collective.

Several Filipino business-owners from restaurants such as Perlas Ng Silangan, Ihawan, Krystal's, Renee's Kitchenette and others have already committed to participating in the street gathering and will donate refreshments for the open community gathering called “Pagtitipon para sa Legalisasyon” (Gathering for Legalization) on April 2 at Roosevelt Avenue. Bayan-USA said that 95 percent of the businesses between 69^th and 70^th streets in this avenue are Filipino-owned, thus considered the Filipino commercial district in New York.

If the Senate will pass this law, Filipinos in the U.S. under the umbrella organizations Bayan-USA and Migrante International, will support the call for a general strike dubbed as “A Day without Immigrants.” Bayan-USA also pledged to join the upcoming protests like the May 1 mobilization in Southern California.

Back home

In the Philippines, Migrante International, an alliance of groups composed of overseas Filipinos and their families which include Filipino organizations in the U.S, said that protest actions at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the U.S. embassy are underway along with efforts to raise awareness about the effects of the Sensbrenner-King Bill on immigrants.

"We're also uniting with immigrant groups from other nationalities to mount the strongest opposition to this anti-migrant bill as well as other repressive legislation that targets migrants," said Connie Bragas-Regalado, Migrante International chairperson, citing lobbying of legislators in the Lower House.These include coordinated protest actions in the U.S. and releasing of a Filipino version of Bayan-USA’s primer, she said. Bulatlat

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