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TRUMP. File photo shows United States President Donald Trump gestures during an announcement regarding his administration's policies against cartels and human trafficking, from the White House in Washington, DC, October 23, 2025.TRUMP. File photo shows United States President Donald Trump gestures during an announcement regarding his administration's policies against cartels and human trafficking, from the White House in Washington, DC, October 23, 2025.

[Mind the Gap] United by migration, divided by Trump

Author: Rappler

Source: Rappler

2025/12/08 12:34

5 min read

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The fracture in the Filipino diaspora has never been more pronounced than in 2025, when Donald Trump managed to magnify old divisions in the Filipino community with the same force and ferocity with which he divided America itself.

On one side are the majority of Filipino voters who still believe in the democratic and welcoming ideals of America, a country built on the blood and sweat of immigrants, legal or otherwise.

They stand in stark contrast to the Pinoy MAGAs who cheer Trump when he says he plans to “permanently pause migration from all Third World countries” like the Philippines, and deport anyone he finds “non-compatible with Western Civilization.” Like me, who speaks English in a thick Tagalog, with a tinge of Kapampangan, accent. Or me who still sprinkles every sentence with ano: “Anak, get me the ano, there, the ano… the rubber shoes.” I’m practically a walking ICE target for sounding “foreign.”

How should a US citizen like me take it when Trump floats the possibility of stripping naturalized immigrants of citizenship? Should my Facebook posts be “Only Me” in case the wrong person screenshot my criticism of Trump and his MAGAverse to snitch me to Kash Patel? Filipinos, like the Afghans, are only a tragedy or a political statement away from being targeted by Trump and his minions.

Of the estimated 2.14 million Filipino voters in the US in 2024, only a fourth to a third lean Republican. The majority, roughly two-thirds, identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party.

But the Pinoy MAGAs have something the rest don’t: Trump as their loudest and most validating megaphone, echoing their resentments, soothing their anxieties, and giving their fear a political home.

Building those walls

By not jumping the fence, these Pinoy MAGAs are with Trump in building his walls. What kills me is many of them came from being “TNTs” themselves before they got whiter than white — not because they dye their hair blonde with hydrogen peroxide or whiten their skin with glutathione, but because they’ve internalized a racial hierarchy in which proximity to whiteness feels like safety. They embrace Charlie Kirk on the fantasy of belonging to a nativist crusade that was never meant to include them in the first place.

The irony is that the very policies Trump advocates target many of them, like ending family reunification — a pathway to citizenship for Filipino immigrants for generations. Meanwhile, those petitioned who got in after waiting for 20 years — just to wait for another five years to apply for citizenship — are now in limbo as naturalization interviews and oath taking ceremonies are being cancelled.

Even green card holders married to US citizens are being arrested during their adjustment status and citizenship interviews at ICE offices for “technicalities” like overstayed visas or a prior removal order that used to be forgiven through the marriage-based immigration process.

For mixed-status families, the financial burden is a costly barrier even as they deal with the trauma of their US-born children, who are citizens, being left behind if one parent is deported. Depending on the complexity of the case, the cost to legalize one TNT family member ranges from $4,000 to over $15,000, including the $2,775 fee to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), but mostly attorney’s fees for necessary waivers.

Of the estimated 4.6 million strong Filipino population, approximately 294,000 are undocumented — mostly those who overstayed their tourist or employment visas or “jumped ship” — who usually work in caregiving, home health, or domestic help, many paid in extreme subminimum wages.

A documented caregiver may earn about $25 per hour, with benefits, but a TNT caregiver can receive as little as $4.17 per hour – paid under the table, with no benefits even as patients are charged up to $500 a day. Fil-Am care homes owners justify this wage theft as “giving someone a chance,” magnifying their false feeling of generosity by providing free board and lodging for live-in workers they effectively treat as indentured servants on a 24/7 duty, isolated, threatened with being reported, and stripped of any bargaining power.

Disunited we fall

Our fragmentation is institutionalized in thousands of competing Fil-Am associations – barrio, city and regional groups, alumni associations, civic and parish clubs, and to top them all, national federations of federations — all claiming to speak for the community, yet rarely working together. There is no single Filipino American political agenda, no sustained coalition, no consistent bloc vote. As they say, the only time you’d see Filipinos acting as one is in a line dance.

Even if we are the earliest to arrive in America, in 1587, representing the third largest Asian immigrant group, we are the least politically represented. Compare that to newcomers like the Indian Americans who have elected governors, members of Congress, and sent Kamala Harris, of Indian and Jamaican descent, to run for president. Or Vietnamese Americans, who, despite being a smaller community, have elected multiple Congress members and local officials in cities where they are predominant in California, Washington and Texas. By contrast, we remain politically scattered. We have size but not cohesion; numbers but not leverage; passion but not political direction.

Unity won’t come from pretending we agree on politics, we won’t. It won’t come from forcing everyone into one ideology, we can’t. But no one else will fight for our rights, uplift the most vulnerable among us and shape our future as immigrants except Filipinos themselves. – Rappler.com

Oscar Quiambao is a former reporter for the The Philippine Daily Inquirer who now lives in San Francisco.

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