Resisting Homeland Security: Organizing Against Unjust Removals of U.S.
Filipinos
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the full report (PDF format).The issue of deportation remains invisible to many. While there has been an increase in the number of deportation of U.S. Filipino in recent years, this phenomenon remains understudied and unexamined. The little information that does exist is poorly researched, some even flawed in its analysis.
Resisting Homeland Security: Organizing Beyond Unjust Removals asserts two main positions that differ from existing knowledge about and interpretation of Filipino deportations post-September 11, 2001:
First, the deportation of Filipinos must be understood for its particularities. A dangerous misconception is that deportations are uniform in and arbitrary across any and all immigrant groups; that these acts of detention and deportation are simply routine governmental practices to regulate migration flows. Our report links current deportations with the colonial and neocolonial relations between the US and the Philippines. In making the linkage of U.S. early imperial excursion in the Philippine with contemporary removal, detention, and deportation of U.S. Filipinos, we suggest a systematic targeting of Filipinos for deportation.As we forge ahead, fighting the ugly heads reared by the Homeland Security regime, we realize that the struggles for immigrant justice can no longer be fought within the frameworks of immigrant rights and citizenship advocacy. Rather, the new homeland security regime dramatically subsumes “immigrant advocacy” into “national security” concerns. In our work with Filipino immigrants, citizens and non-citizens, we are learning that tactics that simply approach the issue of removal, detention, and deportation through immigrant rights advocacy no longer suffice.
Second, the deportation of Filipinos must also be understood under the homeland security regime. Amongst a few misleading generalizations is that post-9/11 legislations and Bush’s global “War on Terror” have no direct impact on the rise of U.S. Filipino deportations. We claim otherwise: homeland security policies detrimentally impact U.S. Filipinos in a multitude ways.
In the following pages of this report, information, research, and analysis of U.S. Filipino deportation since the establishment of Homeland Security are provided. We compiled this report as a beginning of an ongoing analysis and organizing on detention and removal in this historical shift in U.S. practice of imperialism. This report is a testimony to the struggle of U.S. Filipinos against the increasing suspension of civil liberties by the U.S. government, in its pursuit of imperial ambitions.
Most of all, Resisting Homeland Security is a document of hope. Let the information and analysis gathered here inspire Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike, as far as this document can reach, to participate in global movement for justice and equality.
REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
History The history of U.S. Filipino detention can be traced to the late nineteenth century, the beginnings of U.S.-Philippine relations. There is a historical connection between contemporary removal of U.S. Filipinos to the deportations of Filipino nationalists during the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, of the “Oriental criminals” in the 1930s, and of suspected U.S. Filipino communists in the 1950s.
National and Global Contexts The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), implemented by President Clinton, dramatically shifted immigrant rights. IIRAIRA curtailed unauthorized immigration and regulated immigrants, regardless of status, making a home in the U.S. The passing of USA PATRIOT Act and the establishment of Homeland Security subsume the regulation of immigration into national security.
The Philippine government, under the leadership of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was the first Asian country to fully support the U.S./Bush anti-terror campaign. The Philippine government’s collaboration with the U.S. regime has proved to be more detrimental to Filipino immigrants in the U.S.
Impacts Shifts in U.S. legislation have produced difficulty in the lives of U.S. Filipinos, regardless of citizenship status. U.S. Filipinos have been unduly targeted for unjust removal, destructively detained, and placed under detrimental legal uncertainties. They are struggling against new forms of family hardship, and living through legislatively-generated fear and harassment.
Community Organizing The issue of U.S. Filipino detention and removal is only one amongst the numerous detrimental effects of the current domestic version of Bush’s War on Terror. With lessons learned from the support of the Cuevas family, the current historical moment offers the possibilities of a renewed commitment to justice and equality for U.S. Filipinos. The Cuevas family is one of the first U.S. Filipino families to seek support for their impending deportation. Through organizing a support committee, generating public awareness and empathy, building wide institutional and organizational coalition, and taking direct action, the Cuevas family campaign is a notable example of such organized protest to challenge removal orders.
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Copyright © 2004 Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective (CFFSC). All rights reserved.
