JFAV Persevere Our Struggle For Full Rights for All Immigrants and Recognition, Justice and Equity for Filipino Veterans
Los Angeles- The Justice for Filipino American Veterans (JFAV) is seriously monitoring the US Congress debates and deliberations on the current bill on immigration overhaul that will make a long lasting impact on the whole gamut of American lives in years to come.
Arturo P. Garcia, People’s CORE immigrant rights and advocacy desk and JFAV coordinator said: “More than 1/3 or 4 to 5 million immigrants will be forced to hide deeper into the shadows when the US Congress decides to send them all home when it chose to implement the “temporary guest work program” that will divide immigrants, separates families and put up obstacles for undocumented immigrants in their quest for residency and citizenship.”
“The Senate decision to grant the remaining Filipino veterans families and relatives is just a a small tactical victory in the midst of our immigrant rights campaign for full immigrant rights. The US Congress has not passed the pension plan SB 146 and r the equity bill in the lower house HR 4574 This has been languishing there for the last 15 years! The veterans are still unrecognized. Our veterans are l victims of racism and discrimination. The latest debates on immigrant rights clearly show the deep racist undertones from some of the supposed to be lawmakers. “Garcia added.
JFAV, a member organization of the Coalition in Defense of Immigrant Rights (CDIR) is well aware that so called immigration overhaul bill still has to face hurdles. It must be reconciled with the much hated HR 4437 in the House of Representatives. As days goes by- the immigration overhaul reform bill looks more like the HR 4437 The prevailing mood in the US to fast track a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the 109th Congress by this month will not is help speed up Filipino family reunification.
CDIR believes that there are more than 800,000 “illegal” Filipinos immigrants. The more established Filipinos For Affirmative Action (FAA) based in Oakland placed the number of “undocumented Filipinos” from 85,000 ( Department of Homeland Security data of 2003) to 585,000 as of 2006.
JFAV data on the other hand shows that there are more than 11,000 Filipino veterans living in the United States. 4,000 of them lives around the greater Los Angeles area. The USVA data tends to lower the veterans data especially during budget hearings undercounting them to less than 8,000 in the U.S and less than 18,000 living in the Philippines. On the other hand, the Veterans Federation of the Philippines data as of 2004 states that there are more than 54,000 living veterans in the Philippines, 2,000 of them from the United States.
For more information about JFAV and the veterans struggle please contact Arturo P. Garcia@ (213) 241-0906 or email@
jfav_causa@hotmail.com