DAVAO CITY—The Philippines is closely watching the US move against extending the Obama-era immigration policy protecting unauthorized young immigrants from deportation, with the Philippine Labor Department saying the preparation includes a reintegration of the deportees with the local economy.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said it would take time for the Trump administration to get from US Congress a law that would scrap the five-year Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (Daca).
The Daca is an immigration policy crafted in 2012 during the term of former President Barack Obama that provided the legal protection of young immigrants sneaked into the US by their parents or relatives. Several US organizations estimated the number to be around 800,000 young immigrants who were not deported.
Bello told the government-run Radyo Pilipinas here last Friday it would still be awhile before President Donald J. Trump could have his law from Congress. “In the US it takes quite some time for a legal process to come out. Trump could not have that law anytime soon.”
Bello assured the Philippine government is now preparing to repatriate the Filipino migrants in the US who remained undocumented.
“We are preparing also for their reintegration into the economy here so that they can become productive Filipinos,” he said.
Reports documented by social-media networks indicated the US government was “no longer accepting initial requests for Daca, but we will adjudicate initial requests for Daca accepted by September 5, 2017; we will no longer approve advance parole requests associated with Daca; and we are only adjudicating Daca renewal requests received by October 5, 2017, from current beneficiaries whose benefits will expire between September 5, 2017 and March 5, 2018.”
For overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East, Bello announced it has asked Filipino ambassadors and labor attaches to request the host governments to write off the fines of detained migrant Filipino workers.