Filipino sailors say they were falsely accused of possessing child porn and deported

For the last two decades, 39-year-old Michael James Garcia has worked in the cruise ship industry.

"I'm a marine engineer graduate, so actually it's really my profession to work on the ship," Garcia told NPR from his home in the Philippines.

Most of his time in the industry was spent sailing in the U.S. with different companies, most recently with Viking Ocean Cruises where he worked as a motorman in the engine department.

Garcia had a visa that's given to crew members on commercial ships, and he says he'd never gotten into any trouble with immigration authorities. But in October of last year, that changed.

Garcia was interrogated by Customs and Border Protection agents while on board the Viking cruise ship at the port in Charleston, South Carolina. It was unclear to him at that point why he was being questioned.

"I've been very cooperative with them because I'm confident that I didn't do anything that violates the country," Garcia said.

He allowed them into his cabin, and gave the agents his cell phone. Garcia said agents went over his call log, his text messages, and even his Facebook messages.

"I try to ask him, 'What's my violation?' And he said to me that … I have an e-mail linked to a child pornography (website)," Garcia said.

Garcia denies ever downloading, possessing, watching, or distributing child sexual abuse material.

He was never charged by U.S. authorities for any crimes. Still, his visa was revoked, and he was slapped with a 10-year ban from entering the U.S.

"They (don't) give you due process just to defend yourself," Garcia said. "Right now we are being targeted by the United States (in) this (immigration) crackdown."

Garcia's case is similar to that of more than 200 Filipino professional sailors who have been deported from the U.S. since 2025. Almost all of them have been accused — but never charged — of possessing child sexual abuse material.

These deportations stretch across the nation from Baltimore, to San Diego, to Port Canaveral, Fla.

For the last seven months NPR tracked deported Filipino sailors who say they were accused but never provided with evidence to support accusations they possess child sexual exploitation material. Dozens of immigration documents reviewed by NPR back that up.

The Los Angeles-based Pilipino Workers Center has also tracked at least 212 different cases of deported Filipino seafarers. All of them had their visas revoked without any criminal charges.

"This is another way that they are actually raising the numbers of deportations," the organization's director, Aquilina Soriano Versoza, told NPR.

In a statement to NPR, a spokesperson for CBP said allegations that the agency is targeting Filipino seafarers "is FALSE."

"We are targeting criminal aliens including these child predators," the statement read.

However, CBP and the Justice Department did not respond to multiple detailed questions about why the men were deported without being charged or prosecuted for any crimes, including accessing child sexual exploitation material.

Visas cancelled without negative marks

Filipinos are a cornerstone of the global maritime industry, making up more than a quarter of the world's seafarers, according to the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations specialized agency tasked with creating standards for the shipping industry.

"There are a lot of Filipinos in this industry working on not only cruise ships, but transportation ships," Soriano Versoza said. "But even the number is not actually proportional to how many are being (accused) in this way."

Soriano Versoza's organization, which helps Filipino sailors with paperwork and other support, documented hundreds of deportations of Filipino seafarers and all follow the same playbook: CBP agents board the ships in the morning at the dock, they round up a handful of Filipino mariners, take them off the cruise ship, and interrogate them.

"The seafarers wanting to be very cooperative will open up their phones for them," she said. "And even with nothing at all that points to any evidence, they still have their visas cancelled."

Within 24 hours, the sailors are on a plane en route to Manila, she said.

The federal government does have broad authority to revoke visas.

Soriano Versoza says the revocations may be legal, but that doesn't make it right.

"It's clearly unjust because they're not even given a chance to clear their names because there are no charges," she said. "There are no prosecutions."

That's what happened to F, a 53-year-old professional mariner who asked NPR to identify him by his first initial because he worries his case will hurt his family in the U.S.

In April, F was deported from the San Diego port after being accused by CBP agents of having access to a website link containing child sexual exploitation material. He said the agents told him he had accessed the site in 2017 and 2018.

F said he told the agents he didn't know what they were talking about.

"I didn't share and I didn't open anything about child pornography," he told the agents.

He told NPR the actions of the U.S. government against him and other Filipino maritime workers seems politically motivated, meant to boost President Trump's deportation numbers.

"Maybe I'm part of the quota that they need to target for that month," he said.

C, a 27-year-old who asked NPR for anonymity because he worries speaking out will affect his future job prospects, was working his first contract as a housekeeping attendant on a Carnival cruise last summer headed to the Caribbean. While the ship was docked in Baltimore, CBP agents boarded it.

C said agents started asking him questions about his name, his nationality, and whether he had a laptop. C said he responded to the questions, and told them he didn't have a laptop. The agents then asked C for his cell phone, and started checking it.

Agents handcuffed C and removed him from the ship for questioning at the port.

In a sworn statement, he said he was asked about his email access, and whether he had ever received, sent, watched, or downloaded child sexual abuse material. He denied each. When asked about a second email address, he said he'd forgotten the password and replaced it long ago.

Soon after, his visa was revoked and he was deported to the Philippines.

"They told me I was involved in some child pornography thing, but I don't have any of that in my phone," he told NPR, adding that agents refused to show him any evidence.

NPR reviewed his passport and visa, which was marked "CWOP" for cancelled without prejudice, typically used for administrative or clerical errors.

In a statement to NPR, CBP said "these actions are part of our broader efforts to combat the exploitation of children and uphold the law."

"CBP will continue to pursue all avenues available to enforce consequences for crimes like this, including having those accused face federal prosecution, and removal from the United States," the agency said. "CBP remains dedicated to protecting children and will continue to work diligently to prevent such heinous activities."

'We need help to clear our names'

Many of the professional mariners who talked to NPR have said being back in their country after being deported has been hard, and traumatizing.

"Life has been hard for me these past few months because finding a job on a cruise ship is very hard, especially if you don't have a U.S. visa," C said.

C and others have said they've faced discrimination from the job staffing agencies who treat them like they have been convicted of a crime, despite not even being charged.

In a statement to NPR, the Philippines Embassy in Washington, D.C. said "denial of entry is an administrative decision and immigration officers exercise a wide latitude of discretion."

The statement went on to say that "while it's regrettable that our seafarers were denied entry and returned to the Philippines, this outcome avoided the protracted process of formal prosecution or detention, which can extend over several years and result in a greater loss of potential income by the individuals concerned if they were imprisoned."