MANILA — The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has apprehended a 57-year old American woman wanted by US federal authorities for kidnapping her two children and escaped with them to the Philippines.
According to BI Commissioner Jaime Morente, Ana Centillas Lorrigan was arrested in Bgy. Calapacuan, Subic, Zambales by fugitive search unit (FSU) operatives on Friday.
He said the foreigner will be deported for being an undocumented alien as her US passport and that of her two children have already expired.
“Lorrigan left her children with her sister. She has become undocumented and as a consequence she lost her privilege to stay here,” Morente said in a statement.
Earlier, the US embassy in Manila has informed the bureau that Lorrigan is wanted to stand trial before a US district court in southern California where she was indicted for the crime of international parental kidnapping.
The International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act, a US federal law enacted in 1993, makes it a crime to remove a child from the US or retain a child outside the US with the intent to obstruct a parent’s custodial rights, or to attempt to do so.
Individuals found guilty of violating the said law may be sentenced to a maximum jail term of three years.
At the same time, Atty. Ma. Antonette Mangrobang, BI spokesperson, reported that Lorrigan and her children, a girl and a boy, entered the Philippines on April 15, 2011 and did not leave the country since then.
The BI board of commissioners is expected to issue a summary deportation order against the American woman for posing risk to public safety and security and being a fugitive from justice.
“She will then be placed in our immigration blacklist to prevent her from returning to the Philppines,” Mangrobang added. Ferdinand Patinio/PNA-northboundasia.com