Nearly 4K undocumented Filipinos under radar of US-ICE

WASHINGTON D.C. -- Close to 4,000 undocumented Filipinos are under the “system” of the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is primarily responsible for deporting individuals in the US who have violated immigration laws.

According to the document dated November 2024, there are a total of 3,772 Filipinos classified as “noncitizens” on ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations' “non-detained docket with final orders of removal.”

Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose “Babe” Romualdez said the issue on immigration would “probably not” be discussed during the first bilateral meeting of US President Donald Trump and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. slated on Monday.

“I think we probably will not need to, because we’ve had discussions already. I’ve had meetings with the Department of Homeland Security on how we cooperate with the United States on handling illegal immigration,” Romualdez told reporters on Sunday during a press briefing at the Philippine Embassy in Washington.

He reiterated that undocumented Filipinos in the US should take proactive steps by contacting immigration lawyers before it is too late.

“As I have always said, those that have illegal paths should have already contacted the Immigration lawyers. We have volunteer Filipino-American Lawyers’ Association that have come forward to help our Filipino kababayans,” he said.

“But I think at the end of the day, the laws of the United States must be respected, just like we expect citizens who come to the Philippines to also respect our laws,” he added.

Romualdez said majority of the undocumented Filipinos who are under the radar of the ICEA are from the West Coast, particularly from California.

“Well, a large number of course of Filipinos are concentrated in California. So, you can imagine that probably we may have quite a number of them in the West Coast,” he said.

“We do have some of them of course here in the East Coast. Generally, the concentration of Filipinos are in California,” he added.

In January, Marcos expressed his desire to meet with Trump, who at that time just returned to the White House after his victory in the November US elections.

According to a Presidential Communications Office statement, Marcos is seeking to meet Trump to “influence” the latter about his policymaking, particularly on immigration.

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are an estimated 370,000 undocumented Filipino immigrants in the US.