Muted outrage at US immigration

The humiliating experience suffered by 63-year old cancer survivor Carina Yonzon Grande, when she arrived at the Seattle International Airport on October 1, 2013 to attend her daughter’s US wedding, was covered by the Philippine media. Grande recounted her ordeal at the hands of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers after she presented them with her Philippine passport with a 10-year US visa valid until 2017, her round trip plane tickets, and her shuttle vouchers.

Grande was asked by ICE officer Kevin Mam about the purpose of her visit and the length of her stay. “I gave him an honest answer,” Grande told television network, “that the purpose of my travel to the US was to visit my grandson Joshua at Everett and also to attend my daughter’s wedding on October 26 in L.A., and that I was staying for two months,” she said.

The ICE officer then noticed that Grande had visited the US on numerous occasions; in fact this latest visit was her 13th. “I confirmed by saying yes, since the family could afford it,” she replied.

She might be a ‘TNT’

Something about her answer aroused the suspicions of Officer Mam who then directed her to a small room where she would be held for further questioning. For the next six hours, without food or water, Grande was asked detailed information about all her relatives in the US. She answered all their questions and provided them with the names and phone numbers of all her relatives in the US including that of her 90-year old Aunt Nerissa. The ICE officers then used Grande’s cell phone to call her relatives.

A Facebook page for Carina Yonzon Grande

It is standard operating procedure for ICE Officers to test their suspicions when they call relatives. So when Officer Mam spoke with Grande’s Aunt Nerissa, he told her that Grande was coming to be her caregiver, isn’t that true? The 90 year old aunt must have thought, to her pleasant surprise, that her niece was coming to take care of her. How sweet of her. So she said yes.

ICE Officer Mam then returned to Grande’s room and accused her of being a liar based on what her aunt confirmed to him. Grande denied the officer’s allegation because, she said, her aunt was not even aware that she was arriving in the US.

“While Officer Mam kept on repeating his questions about why I was in the US, a fellow officer by the name of Chang, joined and shouted, calling me a liar. He even searched my purse where I had wedding cards (with money) for my daughter and future son-in-law, and a birthday card for Joshua (also with money) and other stuff. He scattered all the items in my purse on the table, asking why they should believe me, when my aunt, according to him, seems to be the honest one,” Grande said.

“While doing this, another officer passed and shouted ‘Who is she, a TNT?'” she said. “I was already shaking, very tired, exhausted, and weak. I had not eaten because of this interrogation,” she added.

[A “TNT” (tago ng tago – hiding and hiding) is Tagalog slang for “illegal alien”].

Grande’s choices

The ICE supervisor, “a certain Mr. Caldwell”, later joined the interrogation and warned Grande that she will “suffer the consequences” if she did not confess.

Grande described her predicament. “If I lie, they would have to arrest me and put me in jail. He even showed me the jail cell. I said, ‘I am telling the truth, and that they can put me in jail because I will never ever admit doing the things I am wrongly being accused of,” she said.

This Supervisor Caldwell then advised Grande that she had two options: “be deported to the Philippines on the next flight of the same day or be put in jail and barred from entering the US for 5 years”.

“Exhausted, hungry, and sleep-deprived, I chose option one,” Grande said. “It is disheartening that at my age, I didn’t receive any respect from these officials. I was treated like a criminal. I was not allowed to talk to my daughter and grandson and my cell phone was taken away from me. Even after the interrogation concluded, they did not give it back to me.”

“It pains me so much that I was mistreated like this. I have never been so humiliated and demeaned in my life! I am still hurting and hope other people will not suffer the extreme humiliation I recently experienced,” she said.

ICE sorry view of Filipinos

The sorry treatment of Corazon Grande reflects the US immigration authorities’ derogatory stereotyped view of poverty in the Philippines that they are ready to believe that even a retired senior employee of the Asian Development Bank will go to great lengths to enter the US just to work as a caregiver for $10 an hour for her aunt.

The US has a Visa Waiver Program (VWP) enabling the citizens of 36 participating countries to travel to the U.S. for tourism, business or transiting the U.S. for 90 days or less without obtaining a US visa. Unlike the Philippines, the citizens of those countries do not have to provide proof to the US Embassy that they possess significant resources that they will not work illegally in the US.

The US Embassy in Manila had already investigated Grande’s economic background before issuing her a tourist visa. She had already visited the US 12 times in the past and had never overstayed or violated US immigration laws. But she was still subjected to intense interrogation by the ICE likely because she might be a “TNT”as she is, after all, a Filipino.

In a separate statement provided to a TV network, Ken Shaw, the fiancé of Grande’s daughter, whose wedding Grande was coming to the US to attend, complained about her inhumane treatment: “She was cruelly interrogated for 6 hours after a 15-hour flight and held without food and water. Derogatory racial slang was hurled her way and she was shown and threatened with a jail cell. Her belongings were carelessly rifled through, wedding cards and gifts from relatives for the couple plainly visible throughout this process.”

Media coverage

Inquirer Multimedia reporter Matikas Santos described Grande’s harrowing experience in an October 8, 2013 article (“Filipina on her way to attend daughter’s US wedding, held, deported”) which instantly drew 6,367 hits from readers who posted her article on their Facebook and other Internet websites.

(Read the full story: Filipina on her way to attend daughter’s US wedding, held, deported)

Santos then wrote a follow-up article the following day (“DFA will assist Filipina elderly allegedly mistreated in Seattle airport” October 8, 2013) where she reported the statement of Raul Hernandez, the spokesman of the Department of Foreign Affairs, who said “We stand ready to assist Filipino travelers who feel aggrieved over how foreign government agents treated them. We are ready to receive more details from the complainant and assist her through our office that handles Assistance to Nationals cases, the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs. Based on these specific details, we will move forward on this issue,” he said.

And then that was it. There were no further articles about what happened to Carina Yonzon Grande in the Inquirer or in other Philippine media.

NaFFAA’S response

When I asked the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) to denounce the treatment of Grande and to demand an apology from ICE, a NaFFAA official denied my request. “We don’t really know how this woman handled herself during the interrogation, usually immigration officers call people at their destinations to investigate and in this case what if they said that she will indeed be caring for someone and gets paid,” he surmised. What if.

Another NaFFAA official feared being “burned” because of “two incidents here in the Midwest where two people were turned around to fly back home, one came previously as a tourist in NY and was hired as a babysitter in another state and was making $10 an hour, we investigated and the immigration officer found proof in her papers that she was illegally working. There is an agency in NY that hires tourists and sends them out of state to work illegally,” she also surmised. What if.

That’s why NaFFAA refused to express any outrage at the mistreatment of Grande. After all, there was always the possibility that ICE might have been justified. What if.

A lousy Toyota

A few years ago, a woman called me from Manila who tearfully recounted her traumatic experience at the hands of an ICE officer at the San Francisco International Airport. She said that she works as a real estate broker in Makati specializing in high end Forbes Park homes. Every time she completes a sale, she said, she rewards herself with a visit to her favorite city, San Francisco.

As she does not have a family, she said she was able to buy herself a Mercedes Benz sedan in the US which she uses whenever she is in San Francisco. On her last visit, an ICE officer noticed the numerous occasions she traveled to the US which prompted further investigation. The officer examined the contents of her purse and asked her about her Costco card and her California driver’s license. She responded that she buys goods at Costco and that she needs a driver’s license to drive her car and showed him the car registration.

The ICE officer then furiously screamed at her and said, “I have been working here for the US government for 20 years and all I can afford is a lousy Toyota and you have a Mercedes Benz???”

He then accused her of being engaged in “human trafficking” and that’s likely how she could afford a fancy car. There was absolutely no basis for his accusation but the ICE officer knew that he had the power to draw whatever conclusion he wanted to make without having to answer to anyone for it. It was his sole judgment call.

Before she knew it, the real estate broker from Makati was on the next flight back to Manila with her 10-year multiple visa to the US canceled.

I asked the emotionally distraught broker if she wanted to publicize her traumatic ICE experience but she declined saying she feared that the publicity would only jeopardize her chances of ever visiting her favorite city in the future.

Bello denounces ICE

There was at least one public official who commented on the treatment of Corazon Yonzon Grande. Rep. Walden Bello (Akbayan partylist), the chair of the House Committee on Overseas Filipinos, urged the US government to hold the ICE officials accountable for their disgraceful treatment of Mrs. Grande.

“It appears that this was standard operating procedure that immigration officers subject newly-arrived visitors to the US. Without any iota of evidence, Mrs. Grande was referred to as a ‘TNT’ or an illegal immigrant.  She was detained for six hours, deprived of her phone and any means to communicate with people outside the detention cell, and called racist slurs,” Bello charged.

“Human rights and respect for human dignity should never be compromised in the effort to plug the leaks of the US immigration system. The abuse and humiliation that Mrs. Grande suffered, all in the guise of upholding immigration laws and protecting American national interests, must certainly be remedied by the US government and its representatives here in the Philippines,” Bello added.

What Rep. Bello deplored should have been echoed by the editorials of Philippine newspapers but, instead, there was nothing but muted outrage.

Meanwhile, a Facebook page entitled Justice for Corazon Yonzon Grande was just opened with this tagline: “We Demand Justice for maltreatment of Filipina Senior Citizen Carina Yonzon Grande by US Immigration Officials at Seattle International Airport”.

(Send comments to [email protected] or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call 415.334.7800).