By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Earlier this week, federal immigration agents detained a 76-year-old Filipino green card holder, known as Tatay L (“Father” L), at what was supposed to be his citizenship hearing. Tatay L has prostate cancer, and requires, among an extensive list of other medications, blood thinners, which he is reportedly not receiving at a high enough dose in his detention at the Northwest Ice Processing Center (NWIPC).
But it’s a mystery as to why he’s there: Tatay L has no criminal record here in the United States.
“He did have some sort of criminal conviction history in the Philippines, but none in the U.S. And this was years and years ago, it sounds like. He did his time or he did whatever it was that he needed to do … and he moved here to Washington in 1995,” explained Meesh Vergara, the contact for Filipino migrant advocacy organization Tanggol Migrante Movement (TMM). “[W]e think [it] is that because that’s the only thing on his record.”
But the only way Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials could have gotten ahold of this information, Vergara continued, is if Philippine Consulate officials had handed it over.
“Our relationship with the consulate has been very fraught with a lot of very obvious neglect for migrants like Tatay L and Kuya Rob,” she said.
In the case of Kuya Rob (“Brother” Rob), whom ICE agents detained last June, and another Filipino migrant, Greggy Sorio (also known as “Kuya G”), whom agents detained early last year, TMM has documented interactions with the consulate in fact sheets, and with one consulate official in particular: Bernice Santayana, the Assistance to Nationals officer at the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco.
The Consulate declined to comment for this article, stating in an email to the Northwest Asian Weekly that the Consulate “does not provide details about individual cases.
“The Philippine Consulate General has been in direct communication with Filipinos in the custody of the [NWIPC], their next of kin, and relevant authorities both in the US and the Philippines,” the email reads. “In line with its mandate to help protect the rights and promote the welfare of overseas Filipinos, the Department of Foreign Affairs provides assistance to Filipino nationals held in various facilities, including in Tacoma, Washington.”
The fact sheets and a timeline, which TMM shared with the Northwest Asian Weekly, describe in sometimes excruciating detail the level of medical neglect detainees face. These timelines also document the inaction and lack of response from the Philippine Consulate, despite TMM and detainees repeatedly reaching out for help.
TMM and fellow immigrant advocacy organizations Defend Migrants Alliance and International Migrante Alliance also held a news conference outside the NWIPC on June 26 to bring attention to Tatay L’s recent detention, and to mark the one-year anniversary of Kuya Rob’s detention. The groups also called attention to what they called the Philippine Consulate’s “overt neglect” of Filipino detainees.
History of medical neglect
Tatay L’s reports of not receiving high enough blood thinner doses are not unique, and TMM and Tatay L’s family fear for his safety at the detention center. ICE has come under fire for the conditions of its facilities, including for hundreds of complaints of medical neglect at the NWIPC alone.
Speakers at the news conference say that ICE agents had denied Tatay L his medication for two days, after detaining him. International Migrante Alliance and Capybara Colectiva member Inez also highlighted that elders like Tatay L are much more susceptible to health complications and infections because of their age alone, never mind other health conditions.
“We have seen healthy people in their 20s go into this detention center and come out completely different on the health scale,” they said. “So, if we’re talking about someone who is well into their 70s, that really does change a lot. Like this person could get an even bigger medical issue in days of being in the detention center without clean water, without access to his medical prescriptions.”
They also pointed out that speakers were “standing next to the altar that La Resistencia has kept up for multiple years of many different people who have actually passed away inside of this detention center. So we may not actually fully understand his medical condition at this time, but what we do know is that people die often inside of this detention center.”
Sorio’s fact sheet details the untreated ulcerative colitis that left him begging “on the floor in deep agony to be admitted to the hospital [on Oct. 15, 2025]. He has to wait three hours before and is forced to walk down the stairs without a wheelchair or stretcher. He is forced to wait another three hours before finally being sent to St. Joseph Medical Center, where is diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.”
He also developed a bone infection that same month.
“[Sorio’s] foot starts swelling to the point he can no longer walk. It is discovered he contracted a bone infection and he is forced to undergo two surgeries to amputate a part of his foot,” the sheet reads. Between Oct. 21 and Nov. 12, “[Sorio] is handcuffed to the bed, under 24/7 surveillance and denied access to his legal counsel for the majority of this time.
“Tanggol Migrante receives information from a verified union member at the hospital that a lead ICE agent left a loaded gun in the facility’s public bathroom for 6-7 hours unattended,” the sheet continues.
The fact sheet also alleges several interactions regarding Sorio’s medical treatment with Santayana. She allegedly told Sorio’s lawyer and TMM that she would try to help him, and that he would be allowed to recover at the hospital. However, three days after that alleged interaction, ICE agents transferred Sorio back to the detention center. Santayana allegedly said she did all she could.
Later in November, despite Sorio’s request to go back to the hospital to get his stitches out, an ICE doctor removed the sutures on Sorio’s foot. According to the fact sheet, it was “a painful, two-hour procedure” in which the doctor “[forced] the stitches out, and [left] the open wound bleeding. Additionally, by this point ICE providers had not redressed [Sorio’s] wounds for four days.”
Sorio allegedly asked Santayana to stop his deportation. At this point, he was also vomiting blood, and had blood in his stool. She allegedly did not, and TMM’s fact sheet records both a lack of response from the Philippine Consulate, and direct actions against what TMM had requested, such as allegedly sending Sorio’s travel documents for his stay of removal request directly to ICE, instead of to TMM, as requested.
Ultimately, ICE attempted to deport Sorio, anyway, who was still using crutches to get around. TMM’s fact sheet notes that the Philippine Consulate “facilitates [Sorio’s] travel document within minutes and ICE escorts [Sorio] onto the plane.”
However, at literally the last minute, because TMM and another Filipino migrant advocacy group, BAYAN WA, were able to deliver Sorio’s medical documents to Philippine Airlines, the airline ultimately stopped his flight, deeming him medically unfit to fly.
Philippine Consulate’s role
TMM has alleged that the Philippine Consulate has colluded with ICE to detain and deport Filipinos. The organization’s fact sheets also point to a pattern of unresponsiveness and failure to step in to help detained Filipinos, which speakers highlighted at the news conference.
Aika, a TMM speaker who requested that their face not be shown, alleged that Santayana specifically “has denied almost every single other Filipino in detention Assistance to Nationals, and even colluded with ICE in their attempts to deport [Sorio].”
“We know that her words are lies. Bernice Santayana also told Kuya Rob and all Filipinos in detention that Seattle Consul General [Henry S. Bensurto] would visit them this week,” Aika continued. “So our movement waited outside every day here in the detention center, outside in the hot sun, and visited our kababayan to see if Bensurto and the consulate would fulfill their promise. And every day, these Filipinos in detention waited for their welfare checks so that they could share their stories and [ask for] the life-saving services they need from their consulate. And in the end, Bensurto was nowhere to be seen.”
The Assistance to Nationals Fund is this year budgeted for $16.4 million. TMM has alleged that the consulate instead spends the money on luxury items for consulate staff.
“It’s just plundering of public funds, public services like that that we’ve seen where this all could easily be spent helping our people,” Vergara said.
In late May 2025, Sorio’s fact sheet records that Consulate officials visited detained Filipinos, including Sorio, at the NWIPC, but “[forced] them into a waiting cell for five hours only to be seen for 15 minutes. In response to a formal request for legal assistance, the consulate told [Sorio], “We’ll see.”
In one of the last alleged interactions with the Philippine Consulate prior his release on Feb. 14, when Sorio asked why he and another detainee had to submit specific paperwork to receive services from the the Philippine government’s Department of Social Work and Development, TMM recorded in Sorio’s fact sheet that Santayana told Sorio, “it would be easier for me if you and [redacted] deport yourself.”
Kuya Rob illustration Courtesy of Tanggol Migrante WA.
Federal agents detained Kuya Rob, 41, on June 26, 2025, for a prior conviction in California regarding a car accident. He was charged with multiple felonies, though no one was harmed in the incident. He served time, before being released for good behavior.
Shortly after his release, ICE detained him. They separated him from his elderly mother and son, 12, both of whom he was supporting, and transferred him to the NWIPC without telling either his mother or son. Kuya Rob’s mother has ultimately shouldered all legal fees—a whopping $10,000—herself.
In May, Kuya Rob told TMM that ICE had transferred “multiple people from his unit to Texas and Louisiana due to overcapacity—with no warning, signatures, and even with pending appeals.”
TMM’s fact sheet also notes a significant lack of response from the Philippine Consulate.
“The Philippine Consulate has not conducted a welfare check or made any contact with Kuya [Rob] since sending a measly $300 to his commissary and a brief call in June [2025],” the sheet reads. “Their lack of support has burdened [Kuya Rob’s] elderly Filipino mother, who is on a fixed income, with all the legal fees and arranging guardianship for his son. Additionally, Kuya [Rob’s] son’s wellbeing is jeopardized when his only parent and main provider was taken from him.”
“Kuya Rob has endured rotten and rat-infested food, water blackened with dangerous bacteria, and the pain of being separated from his son every single day,” said Aika. “The Philippine Consulate, despite knowing of Kuya Rob’s case this entire time, has failed to aid or even contact Kuya Rob’s family in one entire year.”
A real citizenship hearing?
Vergara does not know whether the citizenship hearing Tatay L was supposed to attend was real, or whether anyone at TMM suspects foul play. However, Inez said, “a common tactic used by ICE is to actually come to people’s interviews.”
“So they may be real to the person—they’re actually going forward with their citizenship process—but then ICE is already colluding on the other end to essentially trap people into these situations,” they said. “So someone may be going into this with full faith that they’re going into their citizenship interview, and then they’re actually just detained. So it’s really slimy tactics that ICE is using to be able to detain people. … ICE is doing anything they can to just detain more people.”
Vergara also told the Northwest Asian Weekly that ICE tried to lure Honduran parents of a family she had been working with into custody. Inez also highlighted the family’s story in the news conference.
Agents first detained both the family’s children at a traffic stop on June 12 in Maple Valley. This traffic stop was possibly illegal and unconstitutional, because it would have been based on data sharing between the state’s Department of Licensing and federal immigration agents, an ongoing issue that advocacy groups have repeatedly called out, but Gov. Bob Ferguson has yet to fully address.
“ICE was telling the family that they needed to turn themselves in at the USCIS [United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] office in Tukwila to be able to check in on their kids,” she said. “They were essentially baiting them to turn themselves in—which we have seen time and time again is a way for them to detain more people, more families—which is what ended up happening anyway, because the parents knew that they did not want to go and risk getting detained.”
“What ended up happening,” she continued, “was ICE went to their home anyway and essentially kidnapped them. People went and followed up and their door was unlocked.
The lights were still on. They had medications that were still there. Really, really disturbing.”
While both parents remain inside the NWIPC, the family’s two children have already been deported to Honduras. The family’s son, Isaac, 17, is a cancer survivor and has had his leg amputated.
The family originally came to the U.S. to seek emergency medical care for Isaac, who was then suffering complications from chemotherapy. They sought repeatedly denied asylum, and though the U.S. told the family to leave last May, the family decided to stay, due to Isaac’s need for ongoing medical care.
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