Photo of US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton
PHOTO FROM PEMBERTON FACEBOOK ACCOUNT
MANILA, Philippines—Relatives of slain transgender Jeffrey “Jennifer” Laude on Wednesday asked the Bureau of Immigration to declare US Marine Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton an “undesirable alien.”
In a one-page letter to BI Commissioner, Siegfrid Mison, the family asked the agency to confiscate Pemberton’s passport as well as compel his attendance in deportation proceedings.
“We pray that he be subjected to the procedures prescribed by our immigration laws pertinent to an undesirable alien, including the confiscation of his passport as well as his attendance in deportation hearings,” the letter signed by Laude’s mother, Julita, and sisters, Michelle and Marilou.
“The murder of our loved one violates Philippine law and is a gross disrespect to what we hold dear as a people. His gruesome murder of a citizen should be enough justification to declare him an undesirable alien of the most repulsive kind. We hope you will give this submission your kind and immediate favorable consideration,” it added.
They said Pemberton’s failure to give fingerprints and buccal samples “is an arrogant flaunting of the Rule of Law; every day that he is shielded from accountability, we allow impunity to reign. Every day that he is placed beyond the pale of our criminal laws, we allow someone to abuse in the most revolting way the welcome our country has accorded him.”
The Laude family is skeptical whether Pemberton is indeed in the country despite assurances from both the Philippine and US authorities that he is inside the detention facility in Camp Aguinaldo.
The Bureau of Immigration has also initiated deportation proceedings against Pemberton even though it has to take a back seat to make him answer for the death of Laude.
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