An alarming news has been raised regarding a new plan which the US President is about to implement which will affect family members of US immigrants who are waiting to be petitioned to live in the United States.
In GMA News Program, “State of the Nation with Jessica Soho”, Atty. Lou Tancinco, a California-based Filipino immigration lawyer on Wednesday, said that if President Donald Trump implements the “Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment” or the “Raise Act”, almost 400,000 families who are waiting to be petitioned by their relatives working in the US to live with them will not be able to attain what their hoping for.
Tancinco said, “Almost 400,000 family members of Filipino descent waiting to be reunited with their US citizen petitioners will lose out on their opportunity to immigrate to the US.”
Atty. Tancinco also added that Trump’s plan was seen to be “anti-family” since Filipinos who legally acquired their American citizenship will not be able to petition their parents and siblings for permanent residency in the US.
“Since the executive actions of Trump were released in January and February of this year, the immigrants who are without legal status became more vulnerable, even those who do not have criminal cases,” Tancinco continued.
The lawyer also said that she sees removal cases being filed including cases of Filipinos who were sent home to the country.
In statistics, the US Census Bureau in 2015 had recorder up to 3,898,739 Filipinos staying in the United States of America. 310,000 among them however were said to have entered US territory, illegally.
However, the lawyer said that a Filipino-American advocacy group is working on counter-measures to oppose the Raise Act.
President Rodrigo Duterte and US President Donald Trump were about to meet this November which could be seen as an opportunity for Duterte be able to brought up the concerns of our “kababayans” before the US President.
Department of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Rob Bolivar said, “If we see that it would affect the interest of our kababayans, I’m sure that [President Duterte] will be taking that up with President Trump in a bilateral meeting should it materialize.”
Meanwhile, outside the US Embassy are people lined up in long queue including a certain Junneliza Tea who revealed that marrying her American boyfriend who became her legal husband is her way of fulfilling her dream in acquiring a green card. Sad though, her husband had passed away.
She was about to submit various documents to the US Embassy in Manila to establish if there is a possibility that she and their son be declared as American citizens.
Rea said, “Kailangan ko ng pension po ng anak ko, inaplay ko po iyon para maging US citizen po siya, ang alam ko po after two years ng pagkamatay ng asawa ko, pwede ko pong i-petisyon ang sarili ko,”
Based on the provisions of the Raise Act, Rea’s case will still somehow be affected if the law pushes thru with limiting the issuance of green cards and permanent residency which will be cut to only half a million.
“This Raise Act would cut the number of Filipinos who would be allowed to come legally to the united states, This is ethnic cleansing as political policy,” Filipino immigration rights activist Antonio Vargas said.
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