Anti-deportation demonstrators block the 101 freeway (R) as police begin to clear the freeway while protesting the Trump administration’s deportations on February 02, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
MANILA, Philippines — A number of undocumented Filipinos in the United States (US) have been detained and processed for deportation, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez said on Tuesday.
Romualdez noted that there is no definite count of detained and deported Filipinos, as authorities are trying to “keep it confidential.”
“Obviously, we don’t want it to be something that we would like to put out and these are the number[s],” said Romualdez in an interview with ANC.
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“But quite a number have already been detained and have been processed for deportation. The last one we reported was about 30 of them and I think there are quite a number that have already been put in detention in many parts of the United States that had already been considered to be undocumented and ready for deportation,” he added.
Even before he was reelected, US President Donald Trump had already promised to carry out an unprecedented mass deportation of undocumented foreigners in the country.
In response, Romualdez had said that it would be better for undocumented Filipinos in the US to leave voluntarily rather than face deportation.
“If there is absolutely no chance for you to legally stay, it is best that you just simply voluntarily leave. Why? Because then you’ll have the chance to be able to come back and you don’t go through that harrowing experience of being in a detention center,” said Romualdez then.
In 2023, a report by the Migration Policy Institute in Washington D.C. showed that the Philippines is the sixth top source of undocumented (unauthorized) immigrants in the US with a population estimated at 309,000 in 2021.
The estimated unauthorized immigrant population in the US was 11.2 million in 2021, up from 11.0 million in 2019, with a larger annual growth rate seen since 2015.