The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) expresses its solidarity with Maximo “Kuya Max” Londonio, a Filipino union leader in the US, and his family, friends and comrades in the labor and migrant movement in calling for his immediate release from detention by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and a stop to his deportation.

We condemn the arrest of Londonio, a green card holder residing in Washington state, a forklift driver at packaging manufacturer Crown Cork & Seal and a member of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), on May 16 after returning to the US from a family vacation in the Philippines.

We oppose the deportation proceedings against Londonio, who is currently 42 but has been in the US since he was 12 years old. While he was convicted of a felony charge of grand theft in 2002, he already served the seven-month sentence for the non-violent crime. This conviction does not at all warrrant his arrest by ICE, which exposes a vicious form of blacklisting and creates fear among the US’ significant migrant population and among labor activists.

We condemn Londonio’s transfer to solitary confinement on June 14. This inhumane treatment is a human rights violation and is excessive even in comparison to his criminal conviction more than two decades ago. We have every reason to believe that this transfer is an unjust retaliation and punishment for his efforts to organize fellow ICE detainees in the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington to assert their rights.

CTUHR reiterates the demand of Filipino migrant organizations for the Philippine Consulate in the US to oppose the arrest and detention of Londonio and other Filipinos in the US and provide support to the family of Londonio and other Filipinos previously and currently detained by ICE.

We likewise condemn US President Donald Trump’s program of mass deportation of migrants from the US. The program results from a racist and economically unsound ideology that blames migrants for increasing joblessness and worsening economic performance. It has repeatedly been shown to have violated the basic human rights of migrants who have been targeted by ICE. In weakening US institutions, it further harms what’s left of the oligarch-controlled democracy in the US.

CTUHR expresses its solidarity with the workers, migrants and people of the US who are resisting Trump’s mass deportation program. Trump’s presidency shows that labor, migrant and human rights need to be defended by social movements and mass resistance when they are under attack. No kings who violate rights should be allowed to emerge in a democracy.