In January 2025, Rappler contributor Giselle Töngi interviewed Filipino American Trump supporters in California who were beaming with excitement. They spoke of a coming “golden era,” of common-sense leadership, and the belief that a strong hand could fix the economy and secure the borders.

One year later, that excitement has hardened into something more forceful and more visible, with Pinoy MAGA supporters whose voices that once sounded fringe now shaping the loudest conversations in Filipino American political spaces.

National voter data helps explain why. 

Surveys from the 2024 election show that roughly 35% of Filipino American voters supported Donald Trump, one of the highest shares among major Asian American subgroups. While the broader Asian American electorate leaned strongly Democratic, Filipino voters stood out for their receptiveness to law-and-order messaging, conservative social values, and appeals to strong leadership.

They are often written off as irrational or cultish in the community where two-thirds vote Democrats. In reality, the Pinoy MAGA’s rabid stance is grounded in personal history and a strict belief in rules and fairness – principled in its logic, even when it appears cold or indifferent to the human cost.

Among Pinoy MAGA supporters, allegiance to ICE has become almost a badge of moral certainty. “I stand with ICE!” signals not just political loyalty but lived experience: a defense of the legal sacrifices many first-generation immigrants endured. 

They remember the decade-long visa backlogs, the predatory legal fees, and the soul-crushing anxiety that a single administrative error could result in a one-way ticket back to Manila.

To them, an undocumented immigrant isn’t just a “neighbor without papers” — they are a “line-cutter” who devalues the years of legal and bureaucratic penance they paid. For these foreign-born citizens, detentions and deportations are proof that the system finally respects the rules they were forced to follow.

Stories of ICE raids, arrests, and even deaths like Renee Good and Alex Pretti are often interpreted through the same lens – the presumption that the line must be protected, even if mistakes are inevitable. 

These deaths are categorized as collateral damage – a chillingly familiar rhetorical shield used to justify the body counts of Duterte’s drug war and the extrajudicial killings of the Marcos era: “Nanlaban, eh!”

The strongman appeal

Many among first-generation immigrants came of age in the Philippines during periods when stability felt fragile and institutions felt weak. Ferdinand Marcos, Rodrigo Duterte, and Donald Trump rose in very different countries, but with strikingly similar promises: restore order, punish wrongdoers, cut through bureaucracy. 

Political science research shows that in times of perceived disorder or rapid change, voters become more willing to accept concentrated executive power in exchange for a sense of security. For immigrants who associate chaos with real danger, authoritarian leadership can feel practical rather than extreme.

Gen Z’s activism

But Pinoy MAGA voices, while loud, do not represent the whole community. Surveys continue to show that a majority of Filipino American voters — including many first-generation immigrants and seniors — still vote Democratic in national elections. In 2024, Democratic candidates maintained a modest but consistent edge among Filipino Americans overall.

Alongside them, another political force has been quietly growing — one shaped less by visa lines and more by American classrooms, social media feeds, and friendships that cross immigration status, race, and class.

Millennial and Gen Z Filipino Americans are entering the electorate in larger numbers each cycle, and their political instincts come from a different set of memories. 

They did not spend their young adulthood fearing a paperwork mistake could mean deportation. They grew up watching school lockdown drills, viral videos of police encounters, and friends fundraising online for a classmate’s medical bills or a neighbor’s legal defense.

Two-thirds of US-born Asian Americans under 30 voted for Democratic candidates in recent national elections. They are also more likely than older generations to say racial discrimination is a major problem and to support pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

The uncle who says, “I stand with ICE!” faces a niece who spent the week fundraising for a family facing deportation. Both view themselves as acting morally, both as protecting what is right.

American youth engagement, however, looks different from the Gen Z-led mass street uprisings seen in other parts of the world. Research shows they increasingly practice “digital-first” activism. Online political participation now outpaces in-person protest for this age group in the US. 

Most of their civic engagement happens online: organizing through social media, raising funds for legal defense, sharing rapid-response alerts, and documenting enforcement activity in real time. 

Profound shift 

The future political direction of Filipino America will likely not be decided by viral posts or family group chats, but by lived outcomes. Healthcare access, economic stability, immigration policy, and civil rights enforcement will shape whether strongman politics continues to resonate or begins to lose its appeal.

In that sense, the story is still being written – not just in Washington, but at dinner tables, church halls, union meetings, and college campuses where Filipino Americans are debating, organizing, and, in their own ways, trying to define what fairness really means.

For a community once known for political quiet, this conversation marks a profound and permanent shift. — Rappler.com

Oscar Quiambao is a former reporter for The Philippine Daily Inquirer who now lives in San Francisco.