Immigration officials release Australian missionary nun Patricia Fox

Nearly a day after she was apprehended, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said it granted release for the 71-year-old Australian Catholic nun Sister Patricia Fox on Tuesday, April 17. (Photo: CBCP News/Twitter)

Nearly a day after she was apprehended, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said it granted the release of 71-year-old Australian Catholic nun Sister Patricia Fox on Tuesday, April 17.

In a statement, the BI said that Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente “approved the recommendation of the BI legal division headed by lawyer Arvin Cesar Santos that Fox be released for further investigation after it was established that the Australian nun holds a valid missionary visa and, thus, she is a properly documented alien.”

Fox, according to BI, submitted her passport along with the other immigration documents showing she was issued her visa on October 15 last year and that it will expire on September 9, 2018.

In a two-page recommendation to Morente, Santos noted that while Fox was alleged to have previously taken part in protest actions by farmers, she was not doing so at the time the authorities served her the mission order on Monday, April 16.

Santos added that Fox is not covered by inquest proceedings as this would only apply “to aliens arrested after being caught in flagrante violating immigration laws.”

Under the BI rules, the lawyer further said that Fox should go through preliminary investigation “to determine if deportation charges should file against her before the bureau’s board of commissioners.”

Fox, mother superior of the Our Lady of Sion congregation in the Philippines, was arrested by six immigration authorities at their mission house in Quezon City at around 2 p.m. yesterday over allegations that she is an “undesirable alien.”

BI spokesperson Antonette Mangrobang said Fox, who is a known human rights advocate, was arrested pursuant to a mission order issued by BI Commissioner Jaime Morente.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) News reported that Fox has worked in the Philippines for 27 years helping farmers and indigenous peoples (IPs).

The missionary nun recently joined an international fact-finding and solidarity mission that look into human rights abuses against farmers and Lumads in Mindanao.

According to CBCP News, Fox had been detained in 2013 “for joining protests in Hacienda Luisita but was released without charges.”