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More than 200 Filipino professional mariners have been deported from the U.S. since President Trump returned to office. Most of these people have been accused by immigration authorities of possessing or sending child sexual abuse material, but almost none of them have been charged or prosecuted for that crime. And as NPR's Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports, the accusations alone have upended their lives.
SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN, BYLINE: For the last two decades, 39-year-old Michael James Garcia has worked in the cruise ship industry. Most of his time was spent sailing in the U.S. with different companies, most recently with Viking Ocean Cruises, where he worked as a motorman in the engine department. This was his dream.
MICHAEL JAMES GARCIA: I'm a marine engineer graduate. So actually, it's really my profession to work on the ship.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: But last year, his career became a nightmare. While his ship was docked in Charleston, South Carolina, Customs and Border Protection agents boarded the boat and asked Garcia for his immigration documents. They also interrogated him.
GARCIA: I tried to ask him, what's my violation? And he said to me that I have an email link to a child pornography.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: He allowed the agents in his cabin and turned in his cell phone. Garcia said agents went over his call log, his text messages and even his Facebook messages. Within 24 hours, he was deported back to his native country, the Philippines. His visa was revoked, and he was banned from entering the U.S. for 10 years. But he was never charged by U.S. authorities with any crimes. Garcia denies ever downloading, possessing, watching or distributing child pornography.
GARCIA: They didn't give you due process just to defend yourself. They just grab you in the ship, take you on the plane, interrogate you and then send you back and cancel you and ban you to the country.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Garcia's case is similar to that of more than 200 Filipino professional sailors who have been deported from the U.S. since 2025. Almost all of them have been accused but never charged of possessing child pornography. These deportations stretch across the nation from Baltimore to San Diego to Port Canaveral, Florida.
For months, NPR has tracked deported Filipino sailors who say they were accused but never provided with any evidence to support child pornography accusations. Dozens of immigration documents reviewed by NPR back that up. The Los Angeles-based Pilipino Workers Center has tracked 212 different cases of deported Filipino sailors where all of them had their visas revoked without any criminal charges. Aquilina Soriano Versoza is the organization's director.
AQUILINA SORIANO VERSOZA: This is another way that they are actually raising the numbers of deportations.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: Her group offers Filipino sailors help with paperwork and other support. The government does have broad authority to revoke visas. Soriano Versoza says the revocations may be legal, but that doesn't make it right.
SORIANO VERSOZA: It's clearly unjust 'cause they're not even given a chance to, like, clear their names because there are no charges. There are no prosecutions.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: In a statement to NPR, CBP said, any allegation it is targeting Filipino seafarers is false. The agency says it is targeting, quote, "criminal aliens, including these child predators." However, CBP and the Justice Department did not respond to multiple detailed questions about why the men were deported without being charged or prosecuted for any crimes, including accessing child sexual exploitation material. Many deported mariners told us returning home has been difficult and traumatic.
C: Life has been hard for me these past few months.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: That's C, a 27-year-old seafarer deported last year. He asked NPR for anonymity because he worries speaking out will affect his future job prospects. C says, back home, he's facing prejudice with job staffing agencies treating him and other deportees like criminals.
C: My dream is to board a ship and then to earn earnest money for my family, to provide them good healthcare here in the Philippines.
MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN: But as the sole provider for his mother and with a 10-year ban from the U.S., that dream seems farther away for C and hundreds of Filipino seafarers deported under President Trump's immigration crackdown. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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