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Still A Matter of Conscience. America’s Children.

Elaine-Lehman

By: Elaine Lehman

 

In February 2021, a group of more than 20 senators reintroduced legislation designed to allow some immigrants with temporary protected status to apply for legal permanent residency. The SECURE Act would, according to the lawmakers, allow those who have fled armed conflict or other events to apply to become legal permanent residents. They said around 411,000 people from 10 countries from Central America, Asia, the Caribbean, northern Africa and the Middle East would qualify.

We wanted to touch upon a subject we previously discussed. In May 2019, we noted amidst the celebrations of our cultures and place in American society, there is one group that has received scant attention. More so, this one group has received little awareness and dignity in spite of their plight. This is the plight of the so-called” Filipino Amerasian, born of a Filipino mother and U.S. citizen father – most often U.S. military personnel. This is a continuing dilemma and the story of Jennifer Espinosa Ramsey, whose picture we had shared.

Jennifer was brought to America at the age of 5 when her mother married her American stepfather, who was supposed to adopt her when she turned 18. She was an all-American girl: she played baseball and went to prom. She attended Central Elementary School and Mar Vista Middle School in San Diego, California. Her mother, Jackie, is an Amerasian. Jennifer’s biological father is a U.S. citizen and U.S. military veteran.

When Jennifer was 16 years old, her friend told her that she had overheard their mothers talking about her father. Jennifer recalled, “My friend told me that my (step)dad wasn’t really my dad.”

Her stepfather sent Jennifer and her mother for holiday in Zambales, Philippines. Jennifer later found out that her mother and stepfather had separated. With expired green cards, mother and daughter were not able to return to the United States.

Jenny’s life in Zambales was difficult. She recalled not having enough to eat because her mother did not have a good job. She had to quit school to work. Despite living in the Philippines for 20 years, she speaks primarily English.

In 2010 Jennifer set-up a Facebook account in the hope of finding her biological father, Wayne Morris Ramsey. In April 2010, across the ocean and mountains and plains, in South Carolina, 14-yearold Madeline Ramsey asked her dad if she could have a Facebook account.

Ramsey agreed, but he had to start his own Facebook account too, to see what it was all about. His information included being a former Marine and the places he was stationed, including Cubi Point. He was able to contact his old high school and Marine buddies whom he had not seen or heard from in many years. After two weeks, Ramsey received a Facebook message that changed his life.

Ramsey, married with two daughters, said,“As soon as I saw Jennifer’s picture and before reading the message I knew she was my daughter. I could try to explain all the emotions and feelings that hit me at that moment, but it could take a lifetime. From that very second until as I write this email, we have talked and Facetimed every single day and many times a day…” Jennifer and Ramsey did a DNA test which showed 99.99% positive.

In August 2010, Ramsey arrived in the Philippines to meet Jennifer. She was 25 years old when Ramsey acknowledged paternity in August 2010. The amendment to the birth certificate changed her name to Jennifer Espinosa Ramsey. But it was just the beginning of the long process U.S. naturalization. The Adult Derivative Citizenship Claim was no longer applicable to Jennifer’s case.

Adult Derivative Citizenship “can be claimed by applicants 18 years old and over, whose births are acknowledged by their parents before reaching 18 years of age; born outside the United States whose parent/s at the time of the applicant’s birth was a United States citizen.” Once the citizenship claim is established, the applicant qualifies for a first-time U.S. passport.

Jennifer was born on September 23, 1985. Ramsey was not around to acknowledge her. Wayne Morris Ramsey, Jr. joined the U.S. Marines in January 1984 at 18 years old. He was assigned to the B Company Marine Barracks at Cubi Point in Subic Naval Base. Ramsey met Jackie in a club. She was 17, and like thousands of girls in Olongapo, she worked in a club to survive. Ramsey and Jackie met every other week. Ramsey went home for a few weeks when his grandfather passed away. He and Jackie were no longer together. “Right before I left Subic Bay, I had heard rumors that she was pregnant, but since I hadn’t seen her for a while I didn’t think much about it,” Ramsey said. But, he tried to find Jackie, even calling the Philippine Embassy in the United States as well as the Catholic Church in Olongapo, but all came negative.

From the time of their discovery, Ramsey spent thousands of dollars and hired counsel to have Jennifer recognized as an American. Since Jennifer had lived in California for 16 years, in his petition Ramsey cited that he stayed in the state for a 19-day military exercise in between January- June 1986. However, due to the “misinterpretation” of the term “residence” in the old Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA), the Foreign Affairs Manual stated that a residence is “more than” a temporary presence, is distinct from “physical presence” and is determined in a manner that takes into account “the nature and quality of the person’s connection to the place.” Ramsey’s residence is established in South Carolina In 2017, he received a letter from the Department of State through his attorney, that the citizenship application denied. Jennifer was disqualified from applying for a green card or a visitor’s visa. It was not disclosed to Ramsey by the U.S. Embassy.

In spite of it all, Ramsey and Jennifer are optimistic that someday they will all be reunited in the United States. They continue to remain in daily communication. In November 2018, Ramsey and his daughters travelled to the Philippines to meet Jennifer and her family.

Many countries in Asia have been visited by the United States military, but the Philippines endured the longest American military presence in Asia – more than a century, from American colonization of the archipelago in 1898 to the post-Cold War closure of American military installations in the Philippines in 1992. President Obama, during his visit to the Philippines at the end of April 2014, announced an agreement with the Philippines that gave American ships and planes the most extensive access to bases the closure. President Trump continued aid and presence in the country during his presidency.

As it did in the rest of Southeast Asia, the longstanding presence of American military in the Philippines has come with many consequences – including military-sanctioned prostitution, the abuse of local women, and the birth of Amerasians, mixed-race children predominantly fathered by U.S. servicemen. These children, born to American military fathers and local mothers throughout Asia “due to their illegitimacy and mixed race,” are largely abandoned and face a life of abject poverty, stigmatization, unemployment and abuse. Facing a dismal future, many mothers have had little choice but to forfeit their children and place them up for adoption – or worse, abandon them outright. “Due to the prolonged military presence of the United States in the Philippines, more Amerasians have been born in the Philippines than in all other Asian countries combined, including Vietnam. Therefore, the American military had been as much, if not more, instrumental in creating the Amerasian problem in the Philippines than in Indochina.”

In large part due to Amerasians’ political invisibility in the Philippines and the rest of Asia, it is unclear precisely how many mixed-race children were abandoned by their American fathers. While the Pearl S. Buck Foundation estimated that there were 50,000 Amerasian offspring produced and abandoned in Philippines, recent estimates are as high as 250,000.

In the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War, the plight of Amerasians in Indochina attracted significant media attention. In 1980, Senator Stewart B. McKinney of Connecticut, in a Senate sub-committee meeting, spoke of the Amerasian issue as “a national embarrassment” and called on America’s patriotic duty to take full responsibility for Amerasians.

After much public criticism, President Reagan signed and passed the Amerasian Immigration Act of 1982 (PL 97-359). The Act gives immigration visas, with the possibility of later naturalization, (first and fourth visa preferences or single or married sons and daughters of a US citizen) to Amerasians who were fathered by a US citizen between 1 January 1950 and 1 October 1982 in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (Kampuchea), or Thailand. By contrast, Amerasians in the Philippines – likely the largest population of Amerasians in Asia – have long been ignored. The Philippines and Japan/Okinawa were originally included in the Amerasian Act’s list of Asian countries but deleted at the last minute, for reasons never memorialized in the Act’s legislative history.

Efforts to include Filipino Amerasians in immigration legislation have failed as did recent efforts to include recognition of overseas children born from U.S. military veterans. The governmental interest does not legitimately justify the line-drawing when it comes to children of U.S. citizen fathers – They are America’s children.

President Joe Biden was senator of Maryland and sat on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at the time that the Amerasian Immigration Act of 1982 (PL 97-359) was enacted. We believe that the time is now for America as they consider the rights of immigrants, to also show interest and empathy and give equity to their overseas children, long overlooked and forgotten Americans.

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About Jennifer Espinosa Ramsey. Sources: Morris Ramsey and Eunice Barbara C. Novio, INQUIRER.net, US Bureau. Photos contributed by Ramsey family.

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