Activists Protest Filipino Crew Deportations From Baltimore Cruise Ship

Activists Protest Filipino Crew Deportations From Baltimore Cruise Ship
Catie Kovelman Sep 15, 2025 https://www.cruisehive.com/activists-protest-filipino-crew-deportations-...

Key Aspects:

*Four crew members were deported from Carnival Pride on September 7, 2025, sparking outrage among activists.
*Advocacy groups say that the crew members’ rights were violated because they were deported without due process, meaning that they did not get to defend themselves in court.
*Carnival Cruise Line is cooperating with law enforcement.

In a reaction to the deportation of several foreign crew members from Carnival Pride earlier this week, dozens of activists are peacefully protesting to demand that the rights of these workers are upheld.

Approximately 35 protestors gathered at the Baltimore Cruise Port in Maryland on September 14, 2025, which was a turnaround day for Carnival Pride. The Spirit-class ship homeports year-round out of Baltimore.

Allegedly, three Filipino crew members and one Indonesian crew member were detained on accusations of child pornography on the cruise ship’s last visit to Baltimore on September 7, and were subsequently deported without due process.

This means they were not given the chance to defend themselves in a court of law, nor were they actually found guilty by a judge.

More than a dozen other workers were also deported from Carnival Sunshine in Norfolk, Virginia, earlier this year on similar charges, also without due process.

According to the Tanggol Migrante Movement, one of the grassroots Filipino advocacy groups that has been speaking out, the seafarers’ rights were violated because due process wasn’t followed.

These groups also claim that no evidence has been presented to prove the crew members’ guilt.

They are among many calling on the Philippine government to intervene on behalf of their citizens.

“This was really a heinous act…We call on the Philippine government to act. It’s really their responsibility to do more,” said Mark Rodrigo, education officer for the Malaya Movement Baltimore, which is part of the Tanggol Migrante movement.

“My call is that their due process be upheld and respected,” former Filipino seafarer Philip Coronado said to the crowd gathered at the cruise port.

Additional advocacy groups like the Kabataan Alliance, Migrante USA, and the Filipino Workers Center of Southern California have also spoken out against the deportations.

Were the Workers’ Rights Violated?

If the crew members really are guilty, then they absolutely deserve to be fired and deported – but this was not determined in a court of law and the proper legal process was allegedly not followed.

Per the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in the US Constitution, workers are allowed to defend themselves in court before a final judgment is passed.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Amendment states that “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The due process clauses in the Constitution are meant to protect all “persons” within US borders, not just citizens. The Constitution never specifically designated that this is a right only available to citizens in these clauses.

While there are rare instances where a bad egg slips through the cracks, crew member arrests are rare.

Part of this is because all crew members who work for Carnival and the other mainstream cruise lines have to undergo thorough interviews and background checks before they are allowed to begin their careers at sea.

And of course, Carnival is cooperating with the authorities in their investigation.

“This is a law enforcement matter of which we always cooperate, and we defer to the authorities for further comment,” said Matt Lupoli, senior manager of Carnival’s public relations, in an email to “The Brew.”

According to cruise tracking data, Carnival Pride was not delayed by the protest and departed from Baltimore on time on September 14 to begin its 7-night voyage to the Bahamas.

However, the approximately 930 crew members onboard likely have had to do some rearranging to re-shuffle the workload between different members on the team until new workers can travel to the ship and be brought up to speed.

It’s possible that guests may notice some temporary delays or dips in service onboard as the crew may not be at its usual capacity.