Asian Journal, News Report, Posted: Dec 22, 2010

LOS ANGELES--In 1990, a 10-year-old boy named Mark Farrales arrived in America with his family, seeking political asylum. Several days ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mark at his Reseda home for being in the country illegally. He is now in the Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster, facing deportation.

Mark was a valedictorian at Belmont High School where he was consistently in the honor roll, eventually graduating at the top of his class. He then went on to Harvard where he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in government. Mark then earned a master’s degree at UC San Diego and was pursuing a doctorate there when he was arrested. “I was in the process of finishing my dissertation on corruption reform,” he said.

Farrales and his family left the Philippines abruptly, just days after two alleged hit men shot his father, Jaime, twice in the head outside their home in Quezon City, according to newspaper reports. Jaime, who survived the attack, was a prominent lawyer who often spoke out against government corruption. He had just announced his bid for Congress.

Fearing for their lives, the family went to the US, in Los Angeles on visitor visas and sought political asylum. Jaime Farrales argued that the politicians he’d rallied against had tried to have him killed.