The world came to a standstill when COVID-19 first appeared. Keeping everyone safe and healthy became a priority. Frontline workers, often migrant workers, made this possible by working tirelessly in hospitals, care homes, and other industries to support public health and safety. Yet, in 2025 due to intensified anti-migrant laws and policies of the Trump administration, these same people are being systematically targeted, detained, and subjected to conditions that threaten their physical health and safety while locked up. Their mental health deteriorates from worrying about their families, and then on top of all of this, people like Ate Michelle face the threat of deportation.
Luckily, because of perseverance and action taken by groups and individuals who recognize and stand against injustice, she has been released following her hearing on April 30.
“Ate” is a Filipino term that means older sister. Ate Michelle is a single mother of three who built a life in the U.S. over the last 30 years working as a certified nursing assistant, airport worker, and restaurant worker. Upon returning from her trip to the Philippines in February 2025, ICE arrested her, brutally chained her up, and transferred her to the Bakersfield Detention Center.
Too many people are arrested and imprisoned for simply being from another country of origin and because of those widespread arrests under the Trump administration, Bakersfield Detention Center was overcrowded. So, Ate Michelle was moved from California to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, which is also at max capacity.
“There’s also been a lot of people having mental health issues because they have been in here for that long and for others they seem very depressed because they can’t accept the fact that they were put here even without doing any crime,” Michelle said in an open letter dated April 22, 2025.
She detailed her experience of being denied access to healthcare providers and medication.
“It’s been really rough here in the facility, especially for a person with health issues like myself (I have a brain tumor). I already went to the clinic that they have here twice but was never given any medication by the nurse staff here. I told them that my head is going numb due to how much pain I’m enduring due to my tumor. The nurse told me to just wait for the “sick call” so I can go ahead and go back inside and just drink some water. The second time I went I was treated the same way, no medication nor any form of help for my pain.
Most of the time my head hurts due to my condition and I can’t do anything else but cry because I know that even if I go to the clinic they won’t even try to help me.
The other traumatizing experience other than my health needs not being met is their food situation here. They feed you like you’re an animal in captivity you could barely eat the food they give you here. The worst part about that is even if the food is expired they still feed it to you, the meal times are terrible…[for] example last Saturday our lunch was served at 6:30 p.m. and our dinner was close to midnight.”
Hundreds of miles away from her family, while being pre-diabetic and experiencing painful symptoms from a brain tumor, Michelle along with another detainee, Lewelyn “Aunty Lynn” Dixon, still advocates for the rights of detainees supported by the Tanggol Migrante Network.
As a permanent resident in the U.S., Michelle remains a Philippine National. Despite being detained since February and making multiple attempts to reach the Philippine Consulate, the Consulate did not reach out to her until April. This only happened after Tanggol Migrante and Aunty Lynn pressured the Consulate to take action to support Michelle.
“I am a single mom of 3 and I’m the only one working. I’m asking for help because I desperately want to be with my family. I’m really scared the longer I stay here on what’s going to happen to me due to my health condition.”
When she asked directly for Assistance to Nationals (ATN) support, the Consulate officials questioned how she knew about it, telling her it would take “up to six weeks” to process, missing the deadline for her hearing on April 30. Michelle questioned why the former PH President Rodrigo Duterte received ATN and care packages within hours of his arrest by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, while hundreds of thousands of Overseas Filipinos have not received timely resources.
Meanwhile, on April 30 Tanggol Migrante networks rallied at the Philippine Embassy and Consulates all over the country and Hawai’i to support Filipinos like Michelle in detainment and to put pressure on the Philippine Government to take action and stop its willful neglect and abandonment.
Figureheads like Jose Manuel Romualdez, the Philippine Ambassador to the U.S., have the ability to exert diplomatic power to demand the release of Filipinos like Aunty Lynn and Michelle and should assert themselves. If Romualdez cannot carry out one of his main roles: to protect the rights and welfare of Filipinos Overseas like Michelle — then he should step down.
Michelle, and other detained migrants facing deportation, are caught between a government in the U.S. that seeks to take away their basic human rights, and their home governments that fail to adequately protect them from harm. Migration is not a crime, and activism is NOT a crime. In fact, the actions taken by volunteers and activists are absolutely necessary to protect our people, create better conditions in our home countries, and to get necessary resources for survival here in the U.S. It is the combination of migrants taking action to educate each other and to work with the community that has made this victory possible.
“This is the first time that I saw someone being released, everyone else has been deported,” Michelle said after being released from the Northwest Detention Center.
The Tanggol Migrante Network sprang up under the banner of the Defend Migrants Campaign, working to ensure people understood their rights to protect themselves from ICE, and to come together to resist the fascism in the current climate. Michelle’s release is just the beginning. This is a celebratory moment and a testament to what we can do when we take action collectively.
Let’s continue the momentum and ensure the release and defense of everyone targeted by fascism and violence.
