From Trump Regime II to Marcos II: Fight Fascism & U.S. Imperialism! Forge Unity among the People!
The attacks are rising day by day. Since Trump was inaugurated for his second regime, we have seen the intensification of fascism and imperialist intervention. Fascism in the U.S. is heightening since Trump fattened the budget for ICE through his "Big Beautiful Bill," which provided over 300% additional funding to the agency. With an extra $75 billion, ICE was able to dramatically expand its operations, hire tens of thousands of new agents, and rapidly escalate this campaign of true terror. ICE is responsible for raids that tear families apart, imprisonment of mothers, fathers and children, the medical neglect of thousands in detention and outright murder. The most recent fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Keith Porter shows just how ICE will use any means necessary to suppress nationwide agitation and uproar.
Our kababayan are amongst those being detained, medically neglected while imprisoned and being deported. Despite this, we alongside Tanggol Migrante Movement, have seen the successful release of 8 Filipino migrants from detention and supporting family and loved ones of those detained to launch the organization FFIND: Families of Filipinos in Detention.
However, the fight still continues through the demands for the release of many other migrants in dentention including Muslim photojournalist, activist and DACA recipient, Ya’akub, and the demands for justice for the wrongful detention of U.S. citizen Alma Bowman, and the secret deportation of both Tita Ester and Tita Rebecca. And so many more impacted by Trump’s fascist attacks on migrants across the country.
Trump’s fascist attacks extend globally through U.S. imperial intervention. With the U.S. backed attack and destabilization of Iran; and most recently the invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of its President, the U.S. empire is very obviously clinging onto its imperialist status with sheer desperation.
It is no surprise that both Iran and Venezuela are countries rich in oil and resources. The U.S. will take these resources by force under the guise of “promoting democracy,” just like it has done throughout the Global South including the Philippines.
The U.S. continues to exploit the natural resources of the Philippines through military presence, economic policies, and backing corporate interests by framing the U.S.-Philippines relations as equal partnerships, for security, and development
In the Philippines, the Marcos II counter-insurgency is directly modeled after the United States’ counterrevolutioinary tactics. President Marcos II takes genuine inspiration from Trump. He directed the 2026 national budget to fund an agency that, like ICE, attacks its people within its own borders. This agency is the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac), which also received over 300% additional funding.
This budget allocation of ₱8.1 billion will continue to escalate the "whole-of-nation approach,” institutionalizing terror-tagging, enforced disappearances, mass detention, and murder. Activists, unionists, peasants, journalists, and community leaders are red-tagged to justify their persecution.
Marcos is attempting to mask his fascist agenda through the Barangay Development Program (BDP), which pretends to support the people with land and infrastructure projects. Marcos' promise of development is tied to “counterinsurgency,” creating a vacuum of power that ties the funding to the hands of military officers, and to national and local political elites.
BDP and similar programs create fertile ground for bureaucrat capitalist corruption to breed through the insertions in Marcos' massively bloated budget. Corruption has and will continue to take advantage of the lack of transparency in these projects and create new "ghost" projects. BDP ripples upwards, enriching not only officials and contractors but even officials in Philippine Embassy and Consulates abroad like Ambassador Romualdez hosting his $15,000 dinner party that the public was excluded from.
Both Philippine and U.S. states are heavily invested in disinformation to uphold their ideological grip on the masses. The narratives spun by the state are meant to antagonize the true heroes fighting for the common people and turn the people against activists.
From Chantal Anicoche – Filipino American still detained by the Philippine military for doing environmental research to the thousands of people protesting ICE kidnappings, it is not a crime to go home and it is not a crime to leave home!
On this day, BAYAN USA renews our commitment to fight the fascist Trump Regime II and Marcos II Regime. We call on Filipinos in the U.S. to unite and expose the real terrorists undermining our communities. Let us ready ourselves to dispel the lies of the state! Unite against and resist the worsening crackdown on migrants and our kababayan here in the U.S. and in the Philippines!