Legarda nixes ‘reckless’ US policy vs Asian migrants
Senator Loren Legarda. — File photo
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Loren Legarda on Friday rejected the reported plan of the United States to send Asian migrants, including Filipinos, to war-torn Libya, calling it “reckless and poorly conceived policy.”
The plan was first reported by Reuters, citing US officials.
“I categorically reject this reckless and poorly conceived policy,” said Legarda, who previously headed the Senate committee on foreign affairs.
According to her, sending undocumented migrants to Libya “or to any country with which they share no legal, cultural, or historical connection, transforms immigration enforcement into a punitive spectacle that reduces human beings to logistical burdens treated as disposable.”
“We recognize the sovereign prerogative of every nation to uphold its immigration laws. Sovereignty, however, does not excuse the abdication of humanity,” she pointed out.
Legarda added that the Philippines would be fully prepared to receive its citizens “honorably and with dignity.”
A US federal judge has stopped the plan of the Trump administration, citing an earlier order that allows migrants being sent to other country other than their own to challenge it first in court.
READ: US judge blocks deportation of PH, other Asian migrants to Libya
Senate President Francis Escudero has also denounced the Trump administration’s plan, describing it as “cruel.”
READ: Escudero hits ‘cruel’ plan to deport Pinoys to Libya
“Filipinos are not camels to be dumped on some Libyan desert. They are human beings who deserve to be accorded all the rights by a state who claim to cherish and uphold them,” he said in a statement on Thursday.
“If the United States wants to deport our citizens, then we are willing to welcome our kababayan back. There is absolutely no need for this cruelty to export them to a third country,” Escudero added. /das
