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For the past 17 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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Washington, D.C. --- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Congress on October 18 that there will be a zero-tolerance policy for illegal immigrants in the United States.
“Return every single illegal entrant,” the Associated Press quoted Chertoff as sying in prepared testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Chertoff vowed to end the “catch and release” policy that has allowed tens of thousands of illegal aliens to disappear within the United States. Instead, the US will adopt a “catch and return” policy.
This announcement of a tougher immigration policy was coupled with President Bush’s signing of a $32 billion domestic security bill that has big increases for the Border Patrol, including money for 1,000 new immigration agents and improved technology.
The new law signed by Bush also includes money for more than 1,900 additional beds in detention centers, bringing the total to nearly 20,000.
“If somebody is here illegally, we’ve got to do everything we can to find them,” said Bush. Once illegal immigrants are caught, he said, they must be “returned to their home countries as soon as possible.”
Chertoff, however, agreed with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) that trying to deport all illegal immigrants is impossible.
“It would take billions and billions and billions of dollars to do it,” Chertoff said.
But Reuben Seguritan, general counsel for the National Federation of Filiipno American Organizations (NaFFAA), said the Homeland Security chief’s statements and the new homeland security bill were not realistic solutions to a real problem.
“The enforcement-based approach has been in place without significant impact on national security. Little else suggests that formalizing it via an immigration reform law providing for more detention beds or border agents will make it any more effective,” said Seguritan.
“All it has done so far is erode civil liberties and alienate the immigrant community,” he added.
The hard-hitting talk against undocumented migrants was obviously intended to mollify anti-immigrant extremists who are up in arms against anything remotely suggesting amnesty, Seguritan said.
“Criticizing the guest worker proposal being backed by President Bush and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Seguritan said the proposal lacks provisions for earned adjustment falls short of what immigrants need.
“It fails to give foreign workers who have worked hard, paid taxes and contributed to the growth of the American economy a fair shot at being a part of American society,” he said.
The US 2000 Census shows that there are about 1.8 million Filipinos in the US. No survey has been done to count illegal Filipinos immigrants.
But the Philippine Consulate in New York said that based on studies of some immigration lawyers, there is one illegal immigrant for every three legal Filipino immigrants.
The prospect of returning all illegal immigrants to their home countries was also met with shock by New York City officials and advocates.
The New York Immigration Coalition denounced the Bush administration’s proposed new immigration policy as unrealistic and unworkable.
“The greatest insult is the lack of any path to permanent residence and citizenship, which essentially says to immigrants, ‘Work hard, pay taxes, and then get lost! You are welcome in the lowest rung of our economy but not in our society,’” it said in a statement.
“Far from being compassionate, it crushes the dreams of millions of immigrants who, like generations of immigrants before them, hoped that their hard work and dedication to the American Dream would earn them the right to call this country their home.” the NYIC added.
“A lot of families are mixed-status families, so this kind of a policy would mean the splitting apart of families and leaving children abandoned,” said Amy Sugimori, an attorney at the National Employment Law Project.
“I can’t see [how] a program like that would work without collateral negative effects and unintended negative consequences.”
“There should be some discretion,” said New York City Councilman Kendall Stewart, chairman of the city council’s Immigration Committee.
“People have children and other ties here. It means it would be like a police state and people’s civil liberties will be abused.” -- With reports from Rita Villadiego
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HAPPILY APART. Arlene Aguirre dotes on son Carl, while his twin brother Clarence Aguirre plays with toys during the press conference at the Blythedale Children's Hospital in Valhalla, N.Y. (MNSwire photo)
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Valhalla, NEW YORK --- Carl and Clarence Aguirre, the three-year-old Filipino twins whose conjoined skulls were separated in August 2004 have been living at Blythedale Children’s Hospital here for the last two years. But they will soon be moving into a house with their mother, hospital officials said on October 18.
“I remember when the boys first arrived at Blythedale,” said Larry Levine, the hospital’s president, at a news conference announcing plans to release them. “They were lying flat on their backs, joined at the tops of their heads, unable to move freely, were significantly underweight and had a very bleak prognosis.”
The boys, Carl and Clarence Aguirre, arrived at Blythedale in September 2003, and a month later underwent the first of four operations at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center that culminated in their separation.
They returned to Blythedale after each operation, for intensive rehabilitation. Now their doctors say they are well on their way to living separate lives. The boys, now 3, attended the announcement in matching tennis shoes, blue pants and airplane-print shirts.
They are expected to move by the end of the month to a furnished three-bedroom ranch house in Scarsdale, donated by Westhab, a nonprofit group that provides housing and other assistance to the homeless and to low-income families; Westchester County; and the Village of Scarsdale. Although the arrangement is temporary, officials said it would continue as long as necessary.
Arlene Aguirre, the boys’ mother, choked back tears “To have a house outside Blythedale and a hospital setting is so exciting,” Ms. Aguirre said. “But it’s very hard to say goodbye to everyone.”
The family will still have close ties with the hospital, since the boys go there regularly for day care and additional treatment. They currently receive more than four hours of therapy daily and attend preschool at the hospital’s early childhood center.
Clarence is the more outgoing and advanced of the two. He played happily at a table with movable cars and animals during the news conference. Carl is not yet walking on his own, but hospital officials said he was expected to reach that milestone soon.
Carl “loves to bike; we just have to work on his steering,” said Dr. Joelle Mast, the hospital’s chief medical officer and chief of pediatrics.
Both boys are talking. Clarence uses about 20 to 25 words and Carl about 10. They are learning to feed themselves, and therapists are working with them so they will be able to feed themselves and do other basic tasks.
Ms. Aguirre brought the boys to the United States from their home in the Philippines in September 2003. Their development was stunted because they had been limited to lying on their backs, and they were malnourished because it was very difficult for them to eat.
“The boys and I can finally experience what it’s like to live in a home of our own,” Ms. Aguirre said. “It’s very hard to stay two years in a hospital. It’s time for us to move on.”
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Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA --- Officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are ready to chuck their military careers and support a coup d’etat against President Arroyo, in the hope of bringing about change in the country, according to an article that came out in the Los Angeles Times on October 16.
“The turmoil in the Philippines has reached such a state that some military officers say they are willing to throw away their careers, like (Federal Bureau of Investigation Agent Leandro) Aragoncillo, in the hope of bringing about change,” reporter Richard Paddock wrote in his LA Times article.
“Several officers who support a coup slipped away from their bases one recent night to meet with a reporter and discuss their desire to overthrow Arroyo,” Paddock wrote.
The urgent need for a change was underlined when the officers were quoted as saying that under the Arroyo’s administration, “corruption has flourished at the highest levels of government while the people have become impoverished.”
The officers added they are prepared to use force to remove the President. In her place, they said, they would install a committee of respected officers and civilians who would rule until a new Constitution could be drafted and democracy restored.
Referring to their having relied on constitutional means to oust Mrs. Arroyo through an impeachment, the same group of soldiers reportedly told the LA Times they were hoping Congress would do its job, with one soldier adding: “we were hoping that Arroyo would realize her mistake and step down, but now we have no option. She will not finish her term.”
On the same day the LA Times story came out, the Manila-based daily tribune also carried a statement from the Young Officers Union new generation (YOUng), a clandestine group of military officers who issued a “final call” to Mrs. Arroyo, urging her resign, otherwise, it said, bloodshed can no longer be avoided.
YOUng pointed out the need for Mrs. Arroyo to resign, as she poses “a grave danger to the survival of the country.
The LA Times report appeared to have interviewed detained President Joseph Estrada, who was quoted as having said that given the crisis situation in the country today, Mrs. Arroyo “ is on day-to-day survival,” with Estrada adding: “I don’t believe she can last.”
On the Aragoncillo files that were downloaded, some of which Estrada had admitted to reading, the LA Times said Estrada was “buoyed by the assessment in the US documents that he was a ‘viable opposition figure’ and could be an alternative to Arroyo.”
“He (Estrada) contends that he should be reinstated as President, even though his original term expired last year. He says he would clean up the country, oversee drafting of a new Constitution, hold new elections and then step down.
“We will have to have a transitional period of cleansing to put everything in order,” he said. “I will put everything in order in a year and a half.”
Aragoncillo, who had a top-secret security clearance, was arrested last month for allegedly taking classified documents from computers in US Vice President Richard Cheney’s office and the FBI and alleged to have sent them to opposition leaders in the Philippines.
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