Laudes to BI: Declare Pemberton an 'undesirable alien'

From ABS-CBN (Oct 29): Laudes to BI: Declare Pemberton an 'undesirable alien'

The family of slain Filipino transgender Jeffrey "Jennifer" Laude has urged the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to declare US Marine Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton an undesirable alien.

Marilou, Michelle, and Julita Laude, in a letter-request to BI Commissioner Siegfried Mison, said Pemberton has been formally charged for the killing of Jennifer and, as such, should be subjected to immigration proceedings.

Jennifer was found dead inside the comfort room of a lodge in Olongapo City.

Witnesses claim Pemberton, who took part in the recently concluded Philippines-US Amphibious Landing Exercise 2015, was with her before her lifeless body was discovered.

Pemberton has been charged with murder before the Olongapo City Prosecutor's Office.

"The murder of our loved one violates Philippine law and is a gross disrespect to what we hold dear as a people. His gruesome murder of a citizen should be enough a justification to declare him an undesirable alien of the most repulsive kind."

"We pray that he be subjected to the procedures prescribed by our immigration laws pertinent to an undesirable alien, including the confiscation of his passport as well as his attendance in deportation hearings," the letter read.

The Laudes pointed out that Pemberton should not be "shielded from accountability."

Declaring Pemberton as an undesirable alien, however, will carry with it a penalty of deportation, which runs counter to what the Laude camp had demanded these past weeks: to have Pemberton detained under Philippine custody while the charge against him is being heard.

Jennifer's fiance, Marc Sueselbeck, meantime, is undergoing deportation proceedings for scaling a fence in a restricted area inside Camp Aguinaldo, and pushing a soldier last Oct. 22.
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/10/29/14/laudes-bi-declare-pemberton-undesirable-alien