Sen. Patrick Leahy has been banned from the Philippines because of a provision he authored in a federal spending bill.
Leahy, D-Vt., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., added language into the 2020 appropriations package that urges the U.S. State Department to prohibit Filipinos involved in the imprisonment of a prominent critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s government from entering the United States.
The measure calls for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to deny entry to the U.S. for people who are complicit in the imprisonment of Philippines Sen. Leila de Lima, a critic of Duterte’s drug crackdown who has been detained without trial since February 2017.
The senators’ provision would also have Pompeo prohibit government officials from Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia who have been involved in imprisoning U.S. diplomats and citizens, as well as those culpable in the detention of Mustafa Kassem, an American imprisoned by the government of Egypt.
President Donald Trump and Duterte have enjoyed a cordial relationship for much of their time in office. But on Dec. 20, knowing this provision was included, Trump signed the appropriations bills.
The government of the Philippines responded a week later by announcing neither Leahy nor Durbin would be visiting the country any time soon.
“The Philippines is immediately ordering the Bureau of Immigration to deny U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy, the imperious, uninformed and gullible American legislators who introduced the subject provision to the U.S. 2020 budget, entry to the Philippines,” a spokesperson for Duterte told reporters.
Leahy told VTDigger on Monday that his decision to include a rebuke of Duterte in the funding bills was motivated by a desire to uphold the rule of law and combat corruption.
“I chuckle that they want to keep me out — that’s fine,” Leahy said. “Right now I’m at my home in Middlesex, Vermont. The thought of being on an airplane for 25 hours to go to the Philippines? That’s alright, I’ll stay here.”
Leahy penned the law several years ago that gives the State Department the power to bar foreign nationals from entering the country if there is credible information they or a family member have been involved in significant corruption or gross violations of human rights.
With the language in the appropriations bills, Leahy and Durbin are directing Pompeo to apply this statute to the Philippines and the case of De Lima.
De Lima has been jailed since 2017 on charges that she violated drug trafficking laws, which came after she spearheaded an investigation into mass murders during Duterte’s war on drugs.
De Lima has maintained her imprisonment is due to her criticism of Duterte and his hardline view on addressing drug use in his country.
“Here you have a president who has summarily bragged about having people executed,” Leahy said. “Here Sen. De Lima has been imprisoned for two years, has never been shown the evidence against her.”
“Our own State Department, the United Nations, and human rights organizations have all said this is unjust,” he added.
Leahy has also condemned the government of the Philippines for its threats and attempts to quell reporting by the journalist Maria Ressa on Duterte’s extrajudicial killings.
“When you have a dictatorship like that, normally you call him on it,” Leahy said. “This is not about visas, this about justice, the freedom of the press and upholding the right of the law.”
