January 31, 2025
MANILA – President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. said he will meet with United States President Donald Trump to discuss various areas of cooperation, including the latter’s stricter immigration policies.
In an ambush interview in Cebu City on Thursday, Marcos was asked if he would visit Trump.
“Trump? Yes,” he responded.
“I will meet with President Trump because I should, because there’s much that we need to discuss between the US and the Philippines in terms of trade, defense and security, and now the new policy on immigration,” he added.
There are, however, no definite details yet on the said meeting.
“I think hundreds of Filipinos were already sent back to the Philippines, so this is something that we have to work through and hopefully resolve, because the Filipinos in the US, especially, have really formed the very important part already of their workforce,” Marcos also said in Filipino and English.
Since Trump’s announcement, Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez has said that 24 Filipinos were already deported due to alleged involvement in illegal activities.
“We have monitored around 24 Filipinos who have been deported from the United States due to their involvement in certain criminal activities, although these were not classified as very serious offenses,” Romualdez said in an interview with dzBB last January 26.
Meanwhile, during the Saturday News Forum last January 25, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo Jose De Vega advised overstaying Filipinos in the US to “keep a low profile” and legalize their stay.