Trending: First Deported Filipino Under Trump's Administration Breaks Silence!

Trending: First Deported Filipino Under Trump's Administration Breaks Silence!

On March 17, Rey Galleon, an undocumented immigrant in the US, did not expect that he would abruptly set his foot in the Philippines again after seven years of living in the foreign land.


Galleon's arrival in Manila was unplanned as he was sent by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who arrested him for being an illegal citizen in the US. According to ABS-CBN, he is the first Filipino in Southern California to be deported back in the country due to illegal papers under the presidency of Donald Trump.

Galleon narrated that the ICE came into his apartment pretending to be his neighbors and asking information about his wife and children. Moments after their interrogation, he sensed that the ICE officers were there to arrest him so he asked his wife who is also an undocumented immigrant to sneak out of their house with their children.

After the conversation, Galleon was then brought to the Homeland Security Office in Long Beach where he was given two options. He was asked if he would rather be deported or detained.

Galleon was then sent to the Los Angeles International Airport and paid for his own plane ticket for a Philippine flight. When he arrived in the Philippines, he immediately alerted the Pilipino Workers Center (PWC) which he was a former member of.

The PWC, through their representative Aqui Soriano Versoza, explained that Galleon could have avoided the sudden deportation had he known the basic information regarding his rights. PWC claimed that his two children who were already documented legally as US citizens could have helped him. However, it was really the intention of the ICE to not mention anything about a solution that would be in his favor. They claimed that the arresting body intentionally gives their targets "false options".

"ICE, if you interact with them, are trying to get you to sign your own voluntary departure. He was asking for legal assistance and they were ignoring that and in the end they gave him false options," Versoza said.


On March 17, Rey Galleon, an undocumented immigrant in the , did not expect that he would abruptly set his foot in the Philippines again after seven years of living in the foreign land.US
Meanwhile, ABS-CBN further reported that Galleon's wife and children went back in the Philippines to follow him in Zamboanga.


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