Senator says immigration officers’ inspection practices an abuse of power

A SENATOR has called out the Bureau of Immigration (BI) for its prevailing inspection practices wherein frontline officers abuse their power over departing travelers.

“Of the more than 30,000 that were offloaded and disturbed by the immigration, less than 4.2% had a semblance of a basis,” Senator Ramon B. Revilla, Jr. said in Filipino in a statement on Tuesday.

“Over 95% were troubled and made to spend. This means that only one out of every twenty they offload has basis. Is that a joke?” he said.

“This really says something about the accuracy and efficiency of their performance.”

Citing data from the BI, the senator said only 472 of 32,404 departing Filipinos inspected in 2022 were related to human trafficking, while 873 allegedly misrepresented themselves and 10 were minors.

With the current procedures, it was as if all Filipinos were being treated as human traffickers unless proven otherwise, Mr. Revilla said.

“Why are you looking for a yearbook? Why are you looking for a graduation photo? I can’t think for what reason,” he said, referring to a recent incident that went viral on social media and for which the bureau has since apologized.

The affected passenger, who posted a video narrative of what happened, said she had to spend for a new ticket after she missed her flight due to a lengthy interrogation by the immigration officer who went as far as asking for her school yearbook.

Mr. Revilla called embarrassing the BI’s “brazen disregard” of a person’s guaranteed right to travel, saying that it may even be a transgression on the power of the courts to issue hold departure orders upon cause.

“It’s like they are beyond the court,” the senator said.

Based on the Department of Justice’ Memorandum Circular 036, only tourist passengers identified by the immigration officer to have doubtful purpose of travel, fraudulent travel documents or identified as a potentially trafficked person may be stopped from leaving the country and turned over to the Travel Control and Enforcement Unit.

The memo also states that “as much as practicable, secondary inspection shall not exceed 10 minutes unless extraordinary circumstances require a longer period of inspection.”

“This is obviously being abused. The latitude being given to these (immigration officers) is enormous,” Mr. Revilla said. — Alyssa Nicole O. Tan