Battling to Call the U.S. His Home

Caught in an unusual postscript to American foreign policy, an Anaheim man could face deportation nearly 20 years after he was granted a haven in America by the U.S. government because of his family’s ties to former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

Grant Bondoc and his family were members of the Marcos entourage that was evacuated to Hawaii under the Reagan administration after Marcos was ousted in 1986. But after Marcos died in 1989 in Honolulu and his widow, Imelda, returned to the Philippines three years later and ran unsuccessfully for president, the U.S. government ordered the remaining members of the Marcos group to return home, saying there was no longer a reason for them to remain.

Since then, many members of the entourage -- including nurses, nannies, drivers, gardeners, presidential guards and their dependents -- have found themselves battling to stay in the United States.

Bondoc’s case will be heard Wednesday in a Los Angeles immigration court. He vows that if he is ordered deported, he will appeal to a federal judge. Leaving America would bring complete upheaval to his life, said Bondoc, 34. The son of a Marcos nurse was 15 when he left for the United States, and he has never been back to the Philippines. “I basically would have to get a new life.”

It’s unclear how many of the original group of about 200 were living in the United States at the time of the 1992 order to leave, or what eventually happened to them. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has no specific data on the group, said agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

But according to attorneys who have represented entourage members, some obtained legal permanent residence through jobs, marriage to U.S. citizens or the birth of children here. Others were deported, died or voluntarily went home. A few high-profile individuals were granted political asylum, lawyers said.

Two attorneys who have worked with entourage members estimated that 20 to 50 of them could still be seeking to remain in the United States.

Bondoc, who works as a medical office manager in Garden Grove, began his American life in Hawaii. He graduated from Kailua High School, northeast of Honolulu, and then pursued a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

“I still have Filipino values, but I’m definitely very independent, and that’s very American,” said Bondoc. “I definitely can’t live without hot dogs and hamburgers, and I love football and basketball.”

“A lot of stories we hear on the news are about persons who came to the United States illegally,” said Elif Keles, Bondoc’s lawyer. “They either crossed the border or came in on a tourist visa and stayed. Grant’s case is different. He entered as a minor. He entered with the permission of the U.S. State Department. He was promised political asylum.”

The entourage was admitted under a federal immigration provision referred to as “parole status in the public interest,” a humanitarian gesture used at the discretion of the attorney general. But no formal document was signed by the government and the Marcos group, attorneys said.

A declassified State Department cable from March 1986 assured Marcos entourage members that their status was good for six months and would be “extended indefinitely for those who wish.” Group members had to renew their status annually.

Former State Department attorney advisor Richard Wohl said in a court declaration that he drafted that cable, which “required the assent of numerous high-level U.S. government officials.”

He submitted the declaration in the case of Teresita Patingo Huppanda, a Marcos nanny who last month won her fight to remain in the United States. Her case offered insights into why the government granted Marcos entourage members entry and then five years later ordered them out.

“The purpose of the agreement was to promote a peaceful change of power from the Marcos regime to the new administration of President Corazon Aquino,” Wohl said. Wohl noted that the U.S. government also wanted to prevent Marcos and his entourage from returning to the Philippines, where they might disrupt the U.S.-supported Aquino government.

“This was a very successful resolution to the very ugly crisis of a major ally,” said San Francisco-based attorney James R. Mayock, who represented Huppanda.

Immigration officials, Mayock said, “wrote them letters, saying goodbye, go home.”

In a 1992 letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Huppanda was told: “In light of the death of President Marcos and the recent voluntary return of Mrs. Marcos to the Philippines, it was been determined that there is no longer any need for the further exercise of the attorney general’s parole authority.”

She was given four months to leave.

Mayock successfully argued that although there was not a contract, “the big picture is undeniable.” The Marcos entourage was promised a haven.

In Bondoc’s case, his mother, Griselda, was on duty as a nurse at the presidential palace Feb. 26, 1986, when the uprising began. The United States sent military aircraft to evacuate Marcos, his family, staff and friends.

“[The Marcoses] wanted to take with them all the people who had been dear to them over the years,” said Mayock.

The initial group of about 90 was whisked to Guam, then on to Honolulu. Griselda Bondoc, now 65, was among them. She wasn’t able to tell her family what had happened until she landed at the airfield in Guam. She had no idea she was bound for the United States.

Two months later, Grant Bondoc joined his mother in Hawaii, along with his younger sister, Grichel, and his father, Antonio, a former Marcos presidential guard, who was not on duty the night of the uprising.

The family initially settled in Hawaii, renting two rooms in a four-bedroom house. Things were difficult at first, and everyone had to pull their weight, Griselda Bondoc recalled.

She found part-time work as a nurse at a hospital. A security company hired Antonio; Grant landed an after-school job at Pizza Hut, and Grichel flipped burgers at McDonald’s.

The Bondocs applied for asylum in 1992 but were not granted an interview with authorities until 1999, according to Keles, the attorney.

By that time, Marcos had died, his widow had returned home and the political situation in the Philippines was largely stable. As a result, the Bondocs were denied asylum. The asylum applications of many of the remaining entourage members were also turned down, said Ronald Oldenburg, a Honolulu-based lawyer who filed applications for at least 40 members of the Marcos group.

“In theory, it sounds very reasonable,” said Oldenburg. “But it doesn’t account for the practical impact on these people, many of whom had no choice in the whole thing. For [the United States] now to say, ‘Oh, we’ve changed our minds, you’ve got to go back,’ simply is not fair.”

The Bondocs were ordered deported. But Griselda Bondoc received a green card through her job as a registered nurse and was able to sponsor her husband for permanent U.S. residency. Her daughter married an American citizen and has also become a permanent resident.

In May 2003, an immigration judge canceled Grant Bondoc’s removal order, but the Bureau of Immigration Affairs overturned that decision, saying Bondoc had not met the criteria to remain.

“I couldn’t believe this was happening,” he said. “It was very, very disappointing and heartbreaking.”

Immigration officials would not comment on Bondoc’s case.

The government’s court filings make no reference to Grant Bondoc’s status as a former Marcos entourage member.

In challenging the immigration judge’s decision to allow Bondoc to remain, attorneys for Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote that Bondoc had failed to establish that his aging parents would “suffer exceptional and extremely unusual hardship if he was removed from the United States,” a criterion for eligibility.

But Bondoc’s attorney argued that his deportation would harshly affect his parents because he had always lived at home and taken care of them. He drives his mother to her night-shift job each evening and helps pay the bills. His father, 69, no longer works.

“I would be devastated and really disappointed,” Griselda Bondoc said of her son’s possible deportation. “It’s not fair.”

For Bondoc, who is pursuing a master’s degree in computer resources and information management systems, returning to the Philippines would be enigmatic.

“I don’t even remember my life in the Philippines,” he said.

“I consider myself an American.”