BI set to deport American mom accused of abducting her 2 kids

Bureau of Immigration INQUIRER PHOTO/ ALEXIS CORPUZ

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Tuesday said it is already preparing the deportation of an American national wanted in the US for kidnapping her two children and escaping with them to the Philippines.

Ana Centillas Lorrigan, 57, was arrested on Friday in Barangay Calapacuan, Subic, Zambales by the BI’s Fugitive Search Unit (FSU). She is carrying an expired US passport.

“Lorrigan left her children with her sister,” BI Commissioner Jaime Morente said in a statement. “She has become undocumented and as a consequence she lost her privilege to stay here.”

BI Spokesperson Ma. Antonette Mangrobang said in a statement that Lorrigan and her two children, a boy and a girl, lived in the Philippines since arriving in the country last April 15, 2011.

“The BI board of commissioners is expected to issue a summary deportation order against Lorrigan for posing risk to public safety and security and being a fugitive from justice,” Mangrobang said.

The US Embassy in Manila earlier informed the BI that Lorrigan had been wanted in trial for international parental kidnapping before a local district court in southern California.

Lorrigan may be sentenced to a three-year maximum jail term for fleeing the US with her children, as stated in the US International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act enacted in 1993.

“She [will be] placed in our immigration blacklist to prevent her from returning to the Philippines,” Mangrobang said. Theodore Jason Patrick K. Ortiz, INQUIRER.net trainee / JPV