by Seneca Moraleda-Puguan
Migration is not just a topic I care about – it is my reality.
I am a migrant. Since the age of 23, I have moved across continents, from London to Singapore, then to South Korea, and now to Switzerland.
Each move carried with it the hope for new opportunities, a better life.
I left the Philippines for the same reason many others do – to seek something greater, something that my homeland, despite its beauty and warmth, could not provide.
But unlike many, I have always known I could return. But for countless others, returning is not an option.
Migration runs deep in my family. My mother left the Philippines when I was 17, moving to the United States in search of a better future.
Today, she is an American citizen. My eldest sister is Australian. My youngest brother is Canadian. Even in my Swiss neighborhood, migration shapes the fabric of daily life.
We are surrounded by migrants and asylum seekers, each carrying their own story of displacement, hope, and struggle.
My son Yohan’s best friend is from Ethiopia. My daughter Callie’s first friend in school was from Ukraine, and her closest classmate now is from Iraq. One of the first friendships I formed here was with a woman from Afghanistan.
These relationships remind me that migration is not just a political issue – it is deeply personal. It affects real people, real families, and real children who, like mine, just want to belong.
Yet today, migration is under siege. In the United States, people who have lived legally for decades now live in fear.
Stories like that of a 64-year-old Filipino green card holder who has spent 50 years in the U.S. yet now finds herself detained and facing deportation shake me to my core.
These are not nameless, faceless individuals. They are neighbors, friends, family members. They have built lives, contributed to society, and called America home, only to be told they no longer belong.
This uncertainty weighs heavily on me.
My mother, now vacationing with my sister in Perth, Australia, is scheduled to return to the U.S. in a few weeks. She holds a U.S. passport, but even that does not quiet my fears.
In the current climate, even citizenship feels fragile when you don’t fit the image of what an “American” is supposed to look like.
It pains me that after decades of calling America home, she too might feel unwelcome in a country she has given so much to.
My heart aches for those who are left with no place to turn. Many asylum seekers are not just chasing better opportunities; they are fleeing persecution, war, and oppression.
Going back to their home countries is not just an inconvenience – it is a death sentence. Yet, the doors they once believed would offer safety and refuge are now slamming shut in their faces.
Where will they go? Who will stand up for them?
In their home countries, there is no future. In the countries where they seek asylum, they are unwanted. They are caught in limbo, forced to exist in a world that refuses to claim them.
Lord, have mercy. Especially on the families torn apart by policies that prioritize exclusion over compassion, that value nationalism over humanity.
The cost of these policies is not just legal – it is deeply human. It is the child separated from their parents at a border.
It is the family forced to say goodbye without knowing if they will ever reunite. It is the asylum seeker forced back into the arms of danger because no one will take them in.
I used to believe America was blessed because of its generosity, because of its openness to those seeking a better life.
It was a place where people could be free, where they could belong. That was the America my mother dreamed of when she left the Philippines decades ago.
That was the America she built a life in.
But today, as the country turns inward, placing its own interests above all else, I can’t help but wonder what will come of this shift.
A nation that was once a beacon of hope is now dimming its own light.
For my mother, who once looked to America as a land of endless possibility, the American Dream is fading.
And for so many who still believe in that dream, I fear it may soon be gone altogether.
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