CBP Is Deporting Cruise Ship Crew Over Child Pornography Allegations Without Evidence

Advocacy groups say more than 100 cruise ship crew members have been deported in recent months, and they're not being shown the evidence against them or given any due process.

When Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents marched the housekeeper down the gangplank of the Victory I cruise ship in the Port of Detroit on the morning of July 11, she didn't know what was wrong, but she was confident it would get sorted out.

The crew member, originally from South America, had worked for 20 years on smaller cruise ships plying the Great Lakes. She split her time between her home country, where her family still lives, and the Great Lakes region, where she had a job she loved and a partner. She says that over the years, her respect for America and its dedication to the rule of law had grown.

It wasn't until a CBP agent told her to put her hands behind her back and she felt the cuffs click around her wrists that a horrible feeling washed over her, and she realized she may have been mistaken about something very, very important.

"When I was handcuffed, all that respect that had been building up for 20 years disappeared," says the former crew member, who requested anonymity. 

Why the woman—whom Reason is calling "Maria" to protect her privacy—was being arrested would shock her even more when she eventually found out. 

Maria is one of more than an estimated 100 cruise ship crew members who have been summarily deported and had their work visas revoked in recent months based on unsubstantiated allegations by CBP agents of possessing or viewing child pornography.

According to interviews, advocacy groups, and other news reports, CBP agents are boarding cruise ships with a list of targets and seizing their cell phones, laptops, and electronics. The crew members are handcuffed and detained. CBP agents then accuse them of having viewed or posted child pornography and pressure them to sign an admission, which includes a voluntary revocation of their C1/D visa (a joint crewmember and transit visa). The detainees are not shown the evidence against them or allowed legal representation.

The removals—which have occurred at ports in the Great Lakes region, Norfolk, Virginia, and Florida—have attracted limited outside attention, but they have caused fear and confusion in the cruise ship industry, which heavily relies on international crews.

One of the countries that supplies the most sailors to the cruise industry is the Philippines. It's unknown how many seafarers have been deported off cruise ships in recent months, but two Filipino advocacy groups, the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) and the Pilipino Workers Center (PWC), say more than 100 Filipino sailors have been arrested, deported, and had their work visas revoked since June.

While CBP has arrested and charged several cruise ship employees for child pornography in targeted operations earlier this year and last year, advocates say these cases in recent months have been different.

"There's no evidence. There's no charges being filed. There's no convictions," says PWC executive director Aquilina Soriano Versoza. "And then they're just having their visas revoked."

NaFFAA National President Ryan Namata said in a press release that the organization is "concerned by recent reports of Filipino seafarers being deported without clear explanation." 

"While we recognize the importance of upholding immigration laws, it is equally important to ensure that every individual is treated with dignity and in accordance with due process," Namata continued.

The NaFAA and PWC have demanded clarification and transparency from federal authorities, and the office of Rep. Bobby Scott (D–Va.) also launched an investigation. However, the CBP has refused to release any more details.

"CBP is involved in an ongoing operation," a CBP spokesperson said in response to a request for comment. "Due to the nature of this operation, we are unable to provide further details at this time."

A summary arrest, detention, and deportation under an accusation of possessing or viewing child pornography carries significant due process concerns, and also a devastating financial and reputational impact. A person whose C1/D crewmember visa is revoked cannot reapply for another one for 10 years.

"For these people who have worked as crew, and see that as their livelihood and their way of supporting their families, that's the kiss of death in that profession," says one individual in the cruise industry.

For Maria, being a room attendant on a cruise ship was a perfect job. "I love that job," she says. "My passion is to help others, to serve." She says she turned down opportunities to move to a supervisor position because she liked it so much.

On the morning of July 11, she says she was bringing two carafes to a guest room when she was approached by CBP officers. Once they confirmed her identity, the officers took her phone and other electronics and put them in plastic evidence bags.

After she was marched off the ship and handcuffed, Maria was taken to a temporary detention area with seven other Victory I crew members, all of the rest of them Filipino. She says none of them had been told why they had been arrested.

Then, one by one, they were called into a room where a CBP officer interrogated them. Maria says the officer accused her of posting a photo on her Facebook page in 2018 of an 11-year-old boy with his penis exposed. 

"How come I would post something like that when I have two daughters?" Maria says she asked the CBP agent. 

And if she had posted such a photo, she wondered, why had she been repeatedly allowed in and out of the country in the years since? She also says she demanded to see the post in question, but the officer refused.

"He said, 'You don't have rights, and I don't need to explain it to you,'" Maria recalls.

Soriano Versoza says the details are "very consistent" across the cases of Filipino sailors that the PWC has talked to.

"They're all individually being interrogated, and they're being accused of having watched or possessed child pornography. They will open up their phones, and CBP will go through all of their phones and not find anything. [CBP] might tell them, 'Oh, well we have evidence here that back in 2008 there was something,'" she says. 

That evidence is never shown to the accused, but CBP officers then attempt to get detainees to sign admissions and other documents.

The Business Mirror, a news outlet in the Philippines, reported in July on the removal and deportation of Filipino seafarers from the Carnival Sunshine cruise ship at the Port of Norfolk, Virginia.

Marcelo Morales, one of those former crew members, told the Business Mirror that CBP agents boarded the Sunshine on May 30.

"They confiscated my cellphone and checked everything thoroughly," Morales said. "After the official search, they asked if I had viewed child pornography. I denied the accusation, and after they found nothing, I was cleared and allowed to return to the vessel—no charges, no citation, not even a warning."

But CBP officers boarded the ship again in Norfolk on June 28, accused Morales of watching child sexual abuse material, and placed him under arrest.

"No new evidence was shown. They didn't search my phone again—they just placed it in a small transparent envelope and took me," he said.

Morales was one of nine crew members arrested, held in detention, and then put on a flight back to Manila. The Business Mirror reported that 18 Filipino seafarers were deported from the Carnival Sunshine between February and the end of July.

"We were treated like criminals. We were not fed, we had no water. We are crying. We want justice for what was done to us," Morales said.

Back in detention at the Port of Detroit, Maria refused to sign anything. She was returned to the main holding area, where she says agents took her fingerprints and collected a mouth swab from her, likely for a DNA sample.

In the middle of the night, she says the seven other Filipino crew members who'd been detained with her were handcuffed and driven to the airport to be flown out of the country.

"I cry. I cry," Maria says. "My colleagues tell me, 'Momma, be strong. We love you.' When I saw them be moved out of the detention place, it was the hardest thing. Just like I was innocent, they were innocent. We came with valid visas, medical, everything valid."

The next morning, Maria was driven to the Detroit airport and marched in handcuffs through a terminal of passengers to a flight back to her home country.

"When I was going to this security place with the handcuffs and chain on my belly, it was the worst thing," Maria says.

Maria and the other deported seafarers represented more than 10 percent of the Victory I's overall crew. It seems statistically unlikely that so many of the Victory I's crew, all of whom were vetted by their respective governments and the U.S. government before being issued crewmember visas, were consumers of child pornography. 

In addition to the 18 crew members of the Carnival Sunshine, the PWC and NaFFAA say as many as 80 Filipino crewmembers from Carnival's Mardi Gras and Vista cruise liners were deported in April and May.

In the Great Lakes, media outlets reported that 13 crew members were removed and deported from the Victory I and Victory II in July, along with 16 crew members from the Viking Octantis and Viking Polaris, and an unknown number from Pearl Seas Cruises.

Soriano Versoza notes that, even though international crew members don't live in the U.S.—and usually remain aboard the ship in U.S. ports—their removals will still count toward CBP's overall number of deportations.

"We really think that this is a part of the current administration trying to boost up its numbers of deportations as it's already claimed that it's trying to reach these 3,000-a-day quotas," she says.

While it may be an easy way to juice the agency's deportation numbers, the removals and visa revocations are destroying the livelihoods of former crew members.

Soriano Versoza says that once seafarers arrive back in the Philippines, they're finding out that, in addition to being banned from desirable U.S. cruise routes, they're blacklisted altogether by the agencies that hire sailors for major cruise companies.

"There are a few where they're being placed, having some options of just Asia routes," Soriano Versoza says. "But overwhelmingly, the workers that we've been talking to, the majority of the cruise ships like Royal Caribbean and Carnival are just not rehiring them at all."

To add insult to injury, Maria says that when she received her final paycheck, it was docked $450 for the cost of her repatriation flight.

"I always have a big respect for the U.S., but I'm hurt," she says. "I'm hurt from the way things are going on, for innocent people, working, giving their life, apart from their family."

Maria says she's been overwhelmed with how to begin rebuilding her life with such an awful accusation hanging over her head.

"I don't sit with my kids and explain, because I can't look in their faces, and I feel ashamed," she says. "Mentally, I feel destroyed. I don't want to do nothing. I passed into the worst time in my life."

She credits her faith in God for giving her the strength to carry on. "I'm holding onto Him," she says. "That's why I'm still alive."

Ricci Levy, the president and CEO of the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, a group that advocates for sexual freedom, says that what's happening to Maria and other crew members is "a fundamental violation of due process and human rights."

"They are being accused of one of the most stigmatizing crimes imaginable without being shown evidence, given legal counsel, or afforded a fair hearing," Levy says. "These summary deportations and visa revocations not only destroy livelihoods—they weaponize accusation as punishment."

Victory Cruise Lines did not respond to a request for comment. However, in a statement to other media outlets reporting on the raids, John Waggoner, the founder and chairman of Victory, said: "We are actively cooperating with federal authorities to clarify the circumstances, and my priority is always our crew and the experience for our guests. We wish to thank federal, state and local representatives across the Great Lakes for their prompt  and continued attention to this matter."

Carnival, Viking, and Celebrity cruise lines did not respond to requests for comment.

In a press release, Scott said his office is investigating. "Our nation was founded on the fundamental principles of due process," Scott said. "Under our Constitution, everyone is entitled to due process regardless of citizenship or immigration status."

The removals have also caught the attention of members of Congress in the Great Lakes.

"President Trump campaigned on protecting people and removing illegal immigrants who are 'the worst of the worst.'" Rep. Shri Thanedar (D–Mich.) said. "Instead, we see incidents like the one at the Port of Detroit, where immigrants who are here to work and make a better life for themselves are detained and deported with no due process."