Filipino healthcare workers across the United States are providing essential care while living under a cloud of anxiety, fearing arrest and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. Many are undocumented, filling critical gaps in the system yet facing immense personal risk.
A Life of Fear and Obligation
One such worker, a 57-year-old woman who uses the pseudonym Bella, arrived in Los Angeles on a tourist visa in 2018. She was promised stable work and accommodation by a Filipino family she had previously cared for in the Philippines. Instead, she found herself in an exploitative shadow network of home healthcare jobs, paid a pittance and moved between facilities to avoid checks.
Bound by utang na loob – a deep-seated Filipino cultural concept of debt and obligation – Bella felt trapped. She eventually broke free, living in a church before finding support from a workers’ rights group. Now a part-time independent caregiver, her fragile stability is threatened by news of ICE arrests targeting people like her at workplaces and immigration appointments. "It’s too much," she said, limiting her trips outside to only essential work for her patients.
A Community on Edge
This fear permeates the community. Veronica Velasquez, a 33-year-old physical therapist in Los Angeles, has seen ICE agents in her hospital corridors. Brought to the US as a child and protected under Daca, her heart races each time. "This is my place of work, and it 100% does not feel that way," she stated, describing a healing space that now feels unsafe.
The statistics underscore their vital role. Filipinos constitute 4% of registered nurses in the US, more than double their share of the population, according to National Nurses United. This workforce includes undocumented individuals, with about 2% of all undocumented immigrants hailing from the Philippines.
A Historical Pipeline of Care
The significant Filipino presence in American healthcare is not accidental. It stems from a history tracing back to the US occupation of the Philippines. In the mid-20th century, nursing exchange programs were established, and by the 1970s, a system was actively training and exporting Filipino healthcare workers as skilled labour to the US.
Today, Filipino caregivers form the backbone of a system with severe labour shortages. "[Caregivers] wouldn’t be coming here if there weren’t the need for the labour," noted Aquilina Soriano Versoza of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California.
For many, like 60-year-old caregiver Christina Fadriga, the work is a proud but anxious trade-off. A green card holder, she is rattled by ICE raids and feels torn by a nomadic life split between the US and her family in the Philippines. "But how can you not be afraid?" she asks.
Human Cost and a Plea for Recognition
The stress is taking a severe toll. Bella’s mental health has suffered from living in hiding. She imagines asking policymakers a simple question: do you have elderly parents or children who need care? The likely answer highlights the contradiction of a system that relies on yet criminalises its essential workers.
"Most of the caregivers who are here, we are not here to harm America," Bella asserted. "We are a help in this country." The community continues to care for others while waiting for a sense of safety and the utang na loob – the reciprocal obligation – they feel is owed for their indispensable work.
