BACOLOD City Councilor Sonya Verdeflor reiterated her request to Mayor Evelio Leonardia to convene overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Bacolod and their families, who may end up getting deported or repatriated as result of cancellation/non-renewal of work contract or new immigration reform.
Verdeflor, who authored the resolution for the purpose, said the information from the Department of Foreign Affairs reported that some 10,000 Filipinos may be deported after the United States government decided to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a program that allows undocumented immigrant children to stay in the United States.
She said Daca allowed nearly 800,000 so-called "dreamers" children brought to the US by their parents who then overstayed their visas, to be protected from immigration and get two-year work permits.
Verdeflor noted the Philippine Embassy in Washington said there are 3.4 million Filipinos in the US and some 310,000 of them are undocumented.
It is important to ascertain if some of these undocumented immigrants (TNTs) may have come from Bacolod City or from the Province of Negros Occidental considering that so many Bacolodnon families migrated to the US during the downfall of the sugar industry in the early 1980s.
According to Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, funds earmarked to assist Filipinos overseas can be released to help those affected by the revocation of the Daca.
"It is imperative, likewise, for our City Government, through its OFW Coordinating Council to ascertain if there are also Bacolodnon OFWs, whether newly hired or returning OFWs, that have been affected by the Arab-Qatar rift, resulting to the Department of Labor and Employment's announcement on suspension of deployment of OFWs to Qatar," Verdeflor said.
She said the Philippines as an International Labor Organization member-state, adopts appropriate policy and programs to protect domestic workers from the threat of forced labor and human trafficking in Southeast Asia.