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For the past 21 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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NEW YORK CITY -- The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Tuesday announced that it will increase the cost of applying to become a US citizen by 100 percent and the fee for seeking legal permanent residency by 150 percent.
The fee increases will take effect July 30.
Under the new fee structure, a green card holder applying for citizenship will pay $675 in basic filing and biometric fees, up by 69 percent from the current rate of $400.
The hardest hit by the fee hike are green card applicants (using the I-485 forms) who will have to shell out $1,010.00 for basic filing and biometrics fees, which is nearly three times the current rate of $395.00.
A person petitioning a relative (using the I-130 form) will have to pay $355 in filing fees, up from the current rate of $190.00.
Meanwhile, employer sponsorships (using the I-140 form) will now cost $ 475, which is more than twice the current rate of $195.00.
The basic and biometrics fee for children under 14 of green card applicants is $600, if they are filing with at least one parent. If they are not filing with at least one parent, the total fee would be $930.00. Green card applicants who are 79 years old or older will also be charged a total of $930.00 for their basic and biometrics fee.
Applications for extensions of stay as nonimmigrants (using the I-539) will now cost $300.00, or 50 percent higher than the current fee of $200.00.
Those who are seeking to replace or renew green cards (using the I-90 form) will have to pay $370 in basic filing and biometrics fees. This would be 42 percent higher than the current rate of $260.00.
Those who are filing to renew their green cards within 30 days of turning 14, however, are exempted from the basic and biometrics fees.
In its May 29 press release, the USCIS said it expects that “the revenue from the new fee structure will lead to a 20 percent reduction in average application processing times by the end of fiscal year 2009, and will cut processing times by the end of fiscal year 2008 for four key application types.”
An AP report said officials with Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, said the increases are needed to improve service, hire 1,500 workers, improve offices, equipment and systems to process applications.
“This agency is fee-based, 99 percent of our budget comes from user fees. We need to be the agency people expect us to be. We need to undertake reforms .... The only way to get from there to here is to have the financial resources to do that,” CIS Director Emilio Gonzalez said Tuesday.
The USCIS identified the four key application types, which comprise a third of all applications filed, as the green card application; the petition for alien worker; the application to renew or replace the green card; and the application for naturalization.
The new fee structure includes fee exemptions for self-petitioners under the Violence Against Women Act as well as for all refugee and asylum applicants.
The fee increase came close at the heels of a Washington Post report describing the USCIS as “mired in inefficiency.” According to the report, key changes proposed to the agency that could save about $350 million was rejected “because ending huge immigration backlogs nationwide would rob the agency of application and renewal fees that cover 20 percent of its $1.8 billion budget.”
The backlogs can only worsen as proposed immigration reform could “triple the agency’s annual caseload of 5 million applications.”
The Post reported that immigrants now pay 90 percent of the USCIS budget, subsidizing even non-paying applicants such as refugees, asylum seekers and US military members.
The new USCIS fee schedule drew some 39,000 comments from the public, including criticism that the huge fee hike promises just a 20 percent improvement in services.
Many immigration groups and some Democratic members of Congress have protested the fee increases, saying they will put citizenship and legal immigration out of reach of many immigrants. They also question whether better service will follow.
The new fees were to be published this week in the Federal Register and also were posted on the CIS Web site.
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WEST POINT, New York – It was a great day for the Philippines at West Point over the weekend.
A Filipino cadet, Carl de Leon Liwanag, graduated from the United States Military Academy (USMA) and another, Mario Feliciano, took command of the corps’ Cadet Field Training Regiment – a first for a Filipino, the Philippine Star reported.
Christy Isis Achanzar also moved a step closer to becoming the first Filipina to graduate from the prestigious academy.
In addition, seven Filipino-Americans received their commissions as second lieutenants in the US Army – including Erin Grace Begonia, James Peralta and Bryan Olay.
US Vice-President Dick Cheney urged the 978 new graduates, whose class motto is “Always Remember, Never Surrender,” to provide leadership to troops fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He called on them to defend freedom against those who would destroy it and carry forward the academy’s values of duty, honor and country. “The security of this nation depends on the outcome,” Cheney said.
Liwanag was one of 46 international cadets from 27 countries –-and the only from the Philippines –-to join “the long gray line,” a reference to the color of the uniform the cadets wear.
Class 2008 will have two graduates from the Philippines — Feliciano, who was born in Iran and raised in Kuwait by a Filipino father and an Iranian mother, and Achanzar.
Col. Rolando Tenefrancia, Army attaché at the Philippine embassy in Washington D.C., administered the oath to Liwanag after which proud parents Air Force Lt. Col. Carlos Liwanag and Carmelita Liwanag pinned his AFP shoulder pads on.
Liwanag told The Philippine Star in an interview that he wants to go to ranger school first before joining the infantry to “rock it out with the soldiers… experience the roughness of it all.”
“I’d like to get done with Mindanao as soon as I can. I know I’m going to be heading there some time, so the sooner the better,” he said.
Liwanag is the latest in a line of nearly 80 Filipinos to graduate from West Point since Gen. Vicente P. Lim, who went on to become a World War II hero, received his commission in 1914.
If all goes well 2008 could be a brighter year for the Philippines at West Point on the west bank of the Hudson river, 50 miles from New York.
Achanzar is set to be the first Filipina graduate and Feliciano has a shot at being the first international cadet named First Captain and Brigade Commander at USMA.
Achanzar, a 24-year-old native of Davao City, said that while she was honored, she was also rather tired of being singled out by the press as a “special person” and would want nothing better than to be an ordinary cadet.
But, if her being the first Filipina to graduate from West Point inspires other women to follow in her footsteps, then so be it, she said.
The USMA at West Point officially opened in 1802, but it was only in 1975 that it began admitting female cadets.
Feliciano was born in Shiraz, Iran and raised in Kuwait and doesn’t look like a Filipino. He has lived in the Philippines less than two years and doesn’t speak the language well.
But, from all accounts, he is more Filipino than many Filipinos.
Feliciano was the only international cadet that The Philippine Star saw at West Point with the name of his country, “PHILIPPINES,” on his name plate.
A compelling and passionate speaker, Feliciano said he wanted to finish what his father began. His father, Rosauro Feliciano, was a major in the marines during the Marcos regime before he retired and went to Iran to be an engineering professor.
Feliciano said he had the choice of joining the military academy in the Islamic Republic of Iran or the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) “because I was a dual citizen.”
“I chose to serve the Philippines. I canceled my Iranian citizenship and after I graduated from high school I went straight to the PMA and applied for admission,” he said. While waiting for the call he enrolled at Saint Louis University in Baguio City and joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) to prepare him for the military.
Feliciano also said he managed to overcome his linguistics problems with the help of classmates who slowly taught him Tagalog.
After his plebe year, he and Achanzar were selected to join West Point.
Feliciano said he had wanted to join the PMA since he was eight years old.
He also said: “It does not matter if you don’t look Filipino, if your skin is not fair or even if you cannot speak Filipino. What really, really matters is your heart because there are many people out there who speak Filipino but their heart is not Pinoy.”
“I believe I’m more Pinoy than many Filipinos,” he added, saying he plans to make a career in the military.
Although nearly 80 Filipinos have graduated from West Point, only a few have served in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) until their retirement.
These include the late Gen. Rafael Ileto (USMA ’43) who became a defense secretary and national security advisor, Gen. Fidel Ramos (USMA ’50) who was elected president of the Philippines and Gen. Narciso Abaya (USMA ’71) who became chief of staff of the AFP.
Other West Pointers who remained in the military until their retirement include Brig. Gen. Florencio Magsino (USMA ’51) former superintendent of the Philippine Military Academy and Maj. Gen. Thelmo Cunanan (USMA ’61) who went on to become an ambassador and chairman of the Social Security System.
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NEWARK, New Jersey -- He had been spying for nearly four years, swiping more than 700 classified documents from the White House and FBI.
He had copied secrets from briefing binders and computers in the vice president’s office and the Situation Room, the famous crisis bunker, and smuggled them out in a gym bag. He had downloaded files from FBI computers.
Then, about 20 months ago, Leandro Aragoncillo got something he believed would really help his cause. It was an intelligence assessment, addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, sizing up a political coup in another country.
Aragoncillo, an FBI analyst in South Jersey, forwarded it to a contact in the Philippines, then phoned him.
He was unaware that federal agents were listening.
The details of the call are included in a new court filing by federal prosecutors as Aragoncillo and a second man who admitted to espionage-related charges, Michael Ray Aquino, await sentencing in Newark this summer.
The documents, which a judge made public at the request of The Star-Ledger, also suggest Aragoncillo and his fellow plotters were as amateurish as they were effective, at times more Austin Powers than James Bond.
Aragoncillo e-mailed or faxed the documents to former president Joseph Estrada and his associates. Aragoncillo sprinkled code words into his calls and messages. “Bayside” meant the U.S. Embassy in Manila. “Young golfers” referred to Filipino army officers. Arroyo was known as “the Penguin.”
On New Year’s Day 2005, during a phone conversation with his friend in Queens, Aragoncillo told Aquino that the splintered anti-Arroyo factions would have to unite if they hoped to regain power from her. He preached the idea of a “revolutionary government” in the Philippines, according to an e-mail Aquino later sent to Lacson.
Within two weeks of Aragoncillo’s call to Aquino, the spy began supplying Lacson and Aquino with information from FBI computers, according to prosecutors. He used a code name, “Juan Miguel,” and a Hotmail account to transmit the documents. He warned the recipients the information was “CLOSE-HOLD” and told them to “protect the source.”
Aragoncillo learned the FBI was asking questions about his visit to the immigration office. He urged Aquino to “stick to the original story,” according to an e-mail investigators later recovered. Still, Aragoncillo kept spying. That summer, he applied for a new job in the vice president’s office. In September, Aragoncillo downloaded the classified document addressed to Rice, material about U.S. views on a coup in another country. He e-mailed it to Lacson, telling him it was the blueprint for a coup that would be “US government acceptable.”
They had no idea investigators were listening. Within a week, agents raided the homes of Aragoncillo and Aquino. The agents seized the men’s computers and found 783 classified U.S. government documents, according to the prosecutors’ sentencing memo.
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HONOLULU, Hawaii -- The U.S. Senate has voted to amend an immigration bill to allow the children of Filipino World War II veterans to join their parents in the United States. The Senate approved the amendment 87-9 on Thursday.
“I am extremely pleased that my colleagues in the Senate saw fit to join me in honoring these brave Filipino veterans who fought alongside American troops to achieve victory in World War II,” said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii. “It would be a great final honor for these heroes to be joined and cared for by their adult children as they move through their golden years.”
In Vallejo, the local Filipino community has been following the movement.
“I think it’s good for those who worked so hard for democracy. Many people
were fighting side by side with the Americans,” said Hermie Sunga, a Vallejo City Council member.
“A lot of people will be affected by this in my hometown,” said Sunga, who grew up in the Pampanga province near Clark Air Force Base.
Belle Orpilla of Vallejo said local Filipino veterans will be honored at the June 2 Pista Sa Nayon festival.
“I think it’s about time. These veterans, who are slowly diminishing in numbers, have been waiting for this type of unification and equity,” Orpella said. “As a community I hope we can rally around it.
The U.S. enlisted 200,000 Filipino youth into its military in the 1940s, promising they would get the same benefits and treatment as Americans.
But Washington failed to follow through, waiting until recent years to award pension benefits and immigration rights to the former troops.
The children of the veterans, meanwhile, were not allowed to join their parents in the United States. They’ve instead been forced to languish on immigration waiting lists, dividing many families.
Akaka told the Senate the children of veterans should be able to move to America to take care of their aging parents, now in their 80s and 90s.
Art Caleda, president of the Hawaii chapter of World War II Filipino-American Veterans, said he was excited by the amendment.
“All of our efforts will not go in vain if things go right,” Caleda said.
He added senators would have likely had to abandon the measure if they didn’t bundle it with comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
The same strategy failed last year, however, when a measure to reunite Filipino veterans with their children was included in a large omnibus immigration bill derailed by disagreements over a border fence and making English the national language.
Debate on this year’s broader immigration bill is expected to continue into next month.
The legislation would grant an estimated 12 million unlawful immigrants legal status while improving border security and workplace enforcement.
It’s faced intense opposition from some lawmakers, but the Bush administration and key congressional Democrats and Republicans stepped up their efforts Thursday to sell the compromise.
Two other amendments that could have scuttled the bill were narrowly defeated Thursday.
Akaka sponsored the “Filipino Veterans Family Reunification Act” which is now part of the main bill.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, co-sponsored the legislation, along with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev, and Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif, Patty Murray D-Wash., and Maria Cantwell D-Wash.
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