|
For the past 21 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
|
|
This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
|
|
|
|
To tell us what you think about Filipino Express Online or to comment on the stories published here, E-mail us at Filexpress@aol.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MANILA -- The powerful United States Senate appropriations committee has acted against extrajudicial killings in the Philippines by including specific language in a proposed law which bars the use of US military aid against Filipino civilians.
In the version of the Foreign Operations Spending Bill it approved last week, the committee instructed the US Secretary of State to monitor US military assistance to the Philippines so that this is not “misused by units of the [Philippine] security forces -- against civilians, including civilians who are members of political opposition parties and human rights groups.”
The inclusion of the language followed a lobby by Filipino and American church groups.
Mark Harrison, director of the Peace with Justice Program of the United Methodist Church in the US, said the appropriations committee required the US Secretary of State to submit a report ìdescribing the procedures being applied “to monitor” the funds appropriated by this Act under the heading “Foreign Military Financing Program.”
He said the report must be submitted not later than 90 days after the bill is enacted into law. Harrison told INQUIRER.net in an exchange of emails that the language in the bill was made possible because of the Filipino lobby.
“The Filipino groups who were here in March were very instrumental in getting Congress to address human rights in the Philippines, especially the religious community. US citizens also lobbied members of Congress on human rights in the Philippines,” he said.
Local human rights groups estimate that more than 800 people, mostly leftist activists, have been summarily executed for their beliefs. Of this number, 26 are members of various Christian denominations, Bishop Eliezar Pascua told The Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Pascua was among a delegation of Filipinos who appeared before the US Senate and House of Representatives in March, at hearings conducted by the chambersí respective subcommittees on East Asia Pacific Affairs, to testify on the human rights violations committed by Philippine security forces.
The Philippine government also sent several military generals, including Deputy Director General Avelino Razon, deputy chief for administration of the Philippine National Police, to present its side in the hearings.
But Avelino, who was head of Task Force Usig, a special unit formed to investigate the killings of journalists and activists, and the other generals were not allowed to give official testimony to US lawmakers as their presence allegedly intimidated the witnesses.
Harrison said the lobby was mounted because of “the killings and the role of the [Philippine] military” in these killings.
According to the US Senate Appropriations Committee website, the bill provides for $34.24 billion for key US investments in the fight against global terror, the strengthening of diplomacy, and the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The legislative process in the US is similar to the Philippinesí. Harrison said the US Senate will vote on the bill when it returns from the July 4 recess. The House and Senate will then meet to come up with a single bill.
“It is our hope that the Senate language on the Philippines is adopted. It is stronger than what was approved in the House version. There will then be a vote in the House and Senate on the agreed bill. It will be sent to the President,” he said.
Harrison said that, after much wrangling between the US legislature and executive departments because of a provision on abortion in the measure, President George W. Bush is expected to sign the bill into law before August.
“This could all happen before the August recess period,” he said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Atty. Cristina Godinez
|
|
|
|
NEW YORK CITY -- Thousands of would-be immigrant workers are reeling from separate announcements by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department on Monday, July 2, that employer-sponsored green card applications will not be processed until October of this year.
In an unusual revision of its monthly Visa Bulletin on Monday, the State Department said employment visa numbers will once again be available at the start of fiscal year 2008 on October 1.
This meant that visa numbers in all employment preferences allotted for the rest of fiscal year 2007 have been exhausted even before they were supposed to become available.
No further adjustment of status or immigrant worker visa applications may be processed until visa numbers become available when the next fiscal year begins.
Immigration attorneys fear, however, that the widely-used employment-based third preference (EB-3) will still suffer severe retrogression in fiscal year 2008.
EB-3 petitions cover professionals and skilled workers such as accountants, architects, engineers, IT professionals, teachers, as well as those in US shortage occupations like registered nurses and physical therapists.
The State Department blamed the employment visa unavailability on the “unexpected action” of the USCIS in using up 60,000 employment visa numbers.
The USCIS, on the other hand, said that because of the revised July Visa Bulletin of the State Department, it will be “rejecting applications to adjust status” without current priority dates beginning July 2.
The USCIS and State Department announcements on the exhaustion of employment visa numbers put in question the visa processing and procedures in these agencies.
The revised July Visa Bulletin of the State Department sharply contradicted the original July Visa Bulletin released some two weeks ago that said visa numbers in all employment-based categories (except for the Other Worker category), would be available this month.
Contrary to the State Department’s original Bulletin, the announcements practically confirm that retrogression has re-occurred and will continue toward the end of fiscal year 2007.
The availability of visa numbers in July would have ended, at least briefly, the retrogression which delayed the deployment of immigrant workers, particularly, from the Philippines, China and India, since January 2005.
For thousands of Filipino EB-3 workers, visa number availability meant the processing put on hold by the retrogression would have resumed this month so they may be deployed without further delay.
Meanwhile, EB-3 workers who are in the US waiting for visa availability would have also been able to apply for adjustment of status this month.
Retrogression occurs when the demand for immigrant visa numbers exceed the available numbers for a given year. In such a case, the State Department fixes a cut-off priority date, and cases with priority dates falling on or after the prescribed cut-off will not be processed.
Meanwhile, the USCIS reiterated that it will increase its filing fees by July 30. The filing fee for immigrant worker petitions will be $475 (up from $195) while those for adjustment of status applications will be $1,010 (up from $395), inclusive of biometrics fees.
In light of actual damages incurred by persons who relied upon the original July Visa Bulletin of the State Department, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and organizations of immigrant workers in the US are contemplating a lawsuit on this issue.
(CRISTINA A. GODINEZ is a Manhattan-based attorney For comments or questions, you may send an email to crisgodinez@lawyer.com or crisgodinez@yahoo.com.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
WASHINGTON,D.C. -- A Filipino babysitter was among the 5,500 foreign nationals convicted with child sexual abuse who have been deported by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The ICE report said the Filipino was based in Virginia who repeatedly molested the child in his care.
The deportation of the Filipino babysitter was part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Predator, an initiative aimed at those who sexually exploit children.
The ICE, however, did not name the Filipino child sexual offender.
ICE announced last week that since its inception four years ago, its arrests had topped 10,000.
“Operation Predator is a great example of how our transnational partnerships and wide-ranging legal authorities can work to protect children,” said Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE.
“In the course of this highly successful operation, ICE has investigated and arrested people who tried to use the anonymity of the web, foreign travel or their roles as trusted members of the community to hide their crimes, ” she said.
More than 8,600 of those arrested as part of the operation have been non-citizen sex offenders whose crimes make them removable from the United States. More than 5,500 have been removed from the United States.
Child exploitation takes many forms. ICE targets child pornographers, child sex tourists and facilitators, human smugglers and traffickers of minors, criminal aliens convicted of offenses against minors and those deported for child exploitation offenses who have returned illegally.
Those who prey on children are often trusted members of the victims’ families or communities. Among the 10,000 predators arrested by ICE were: relatives of victims, clergymen, doctors, athletic coaches, daycare and camp directors, teachers, janitors, babysitters, law enforcement officers, firefighters and military officers.
ICE has special authority when it comes to foreign nationals who prey on children in the United States. Of the 10,061 arrests made as part of Operation Predator, 8,601 have been arrests of foreign national sex offenders whose crimes make them removable from the US.
More than 5,500 of these predators have been deported, including a Polish man in New Jersey who repeatedly molested his own daughters, and an Austrian-national soccer coach convicted of repeatedly fondling a mentally impaired minor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DETROIT, Michigan -- Filipinos and other foreign-trained nurses no longer will have to pass an additional exam to work in Michigan, in accordance with a bill signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in June.
The new law removes the requirement for nurses who graduated from nursing schools outside the United States to pass the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools, in addition to the licensing exam given to nurses trained in this country, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The lifting of the requirement, which most nurses say was costly and burdensome, could help alleviate the projected nursing shortage in Michigan hospitals by bringing hundreds or even thousands of foreign-trained nurses into the state health care system.
“We have a health care sector that’s growing,” said Rep. Hoon-Yung Hopgood, D-Taylor, who sponsored the bill. “Demand is growing and will continue to grow. We also have a nursing shortage, and it’s going to be increasingly more significant, so this is a way to help us.”
Michigan is expected to have a shortage of 7,000 nurses by 2010 and 18,000 by 2015, according to the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth.
The majority of foreign-trained nurses in Michigan come from the Philippines, said Jeanette Klemczak, chief nurse executive for the state.
“It’s one of the solutions for the nursing shortage,” said Remedios Solarte, a nurse practitioner and emeritus professor of nursing at Oakland Community College. “This will probably bring nurses into Michigan, and will affect not only Filipino nurses but all foreign graduates like Indians, Arab Americans, Chinese, Korean,” she said.
Removing the burden of an additional test sends the message that Michigan welcomes foreign-trained nurses, Klemczak said.
“It says to foreign-trained nurses that Michigan is a nurse-friendly state and we’ve done all we can to facilitate their ability to come here and practice,” she said.
Michigan is now among 22 states that have removed the requirement for foreign-trained nurses to pass the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools as a prerequisite to the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses -- the exam all nursing school graduates must pass the before practicing in the United States.
The foreign exam tests much of the same knowledge as the national exam, which makes it redundant, some nurses say.
Moreover, the test is not offered in every country, making it difficult for some foreign-trained nurses to take it, Hopgood said.
The exam is also a financial burden, said Van S. Ong, a nurse manager in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Henry Ford Health System.
In the Philippines, for instance, nursing graduates had to pay $375 to register for the test, he said. The new law requires graduates of foreign nursing schools to provide verification that the training they received outside the United States is equivalent to the training received in Michigan nursing schools.
“This in no way changes any of our issues around quality of nurses or the safety to practice,” Klemczak said. “All it does is eliminate a redundancy exam.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
