On being a Victim of Human Trafficking out of Film School in the US.

11 min readOct 21, 2023

By Orlando G. Bregman, October 20, 2023

(They/He)

**Screenshot from the internet, official US government website.**

**My Film School letter of acceptance with I-20, from Los Angeles City College, dated April 1 of 1992.**

I would like to hereby remind my film community that I am a Dutch HOSTAGE in the US myself, and have been for the last 30 plus years with seemingly no end in sight. (There is no legal way for me to return to the Netherlands after all and my country will simply not take me back anymore after having been gone for this long.)

It ultimately really took me my entire 31 years here in Los Angeles to fully comprehend that the US and its’ International Student Program (F-1 student visa program) allowed me, even encouraged me, as a Dutch trans-masculine, gender nonconforming lesbian of partial Asian descent to be HUMAN TRAFFICKED out of the Cinema Program at Los Angeles City College in 1992 at age 19.

(Technically this even constitutes Child Trafficking as a 19 year old is considered a child according to US immigration policy, and I was as a child mandatorily fully sponsored by my Dutch parents, who signed an Affidavit-Of-Support, as well by the Dutch government itself, under the Dutch Cild Tax Credit program.)

Regarding my complicated “racial ethnicity” in the US, I cannot even truly properly claim to be bi-racial, even though I have done so at times and people routinely perceive me as a person of Color, though usually Latinx, complicating things even further for me, and I am most definitely a victim of racism. But my partial Asian heritage on my mother’s side dates back to the colonialist times referred to in the Netherlands as “The Golden Age” or in Indonesian terms “Tempo Doeloe” (1602–1949), same as rock band Van Halen’s heritage, and I am not truly Asian in a way that is recognized by Asians as being truly authentic, (not that there is a monolith or proper way to be Asian of course neither.)

But that is to say, I am not in any way culturally Asian, nor is any part of my Asian side of the family. We do not speak an Asian language nor have Asian last names, etc., the same way a bi-racial Black and white person in the US is not truly African, but is definitely partially of distant African descent and so a descendant of slavery times in the US. And yet they will still very much experience racism in America, (like say Jennifer Beals, or Colin Kaperninck, or Barack Obama.)

It is perhaps the subconscious reason I have always felt somewhat closer to the “Black experience in America” than to the “Latinx or Asian immigrant experience” here but I digress.

Look closely at the dates on my lawfully acquired Employment Authorization Document (EAD) or 1-year work permit. Valid from 11/13/92. Expires 11/12/93. My divorce from Erik Bergquist (future co-writer of The Fast and The Furious, who forced me into an immigration marriage when I was 19 in 1992 and officially a child according to US immigration policy) was until a year later, August 4, 1994. My work permit expired during the marriage that is, while I worked at the Laemmle Theatres, and couldn’t be renewed without Bergquist’s signature.

No one has been held responsible for this HUMAN TRAFFICKING of me as of yet (other than me having been blamed all along), not Los Angeles City College, and its’ Foreign Student Advisor (Bennie J. Padilla, who’s not alive anymore) nor the fellow film student (Erik Bergquist, future co-writer of The Fast and The Furious) responsible for continuously sexually harassing me in class and changing all my paperwork through forced immigration marriage behind the school and my parents’ backs, effectively changing my merit-based student visa to a family-based marital sponsorship.

My parents in the Netherlands were half a world away however and signed all the appropriate papers and paid the Out-Of-State tuition in advance but the school itself should have picked up on Erik Bergquist’s sexually aggressive behavior and my subsequent absences from class, eventually leading to LACC dropping me from school altogether, instead of protecting me as an International Film Student.

Because of this abrupt immigration change I ended up with a Social Security Number that is, albeit real and valid for life, not tied into the Special Tax Treaty the US’ Social Security Administration has with the Dutch Social Security Administration (or Social Verzekeringen Bank, where my father incidentally worked for decades) and I therefore am also not recognized by the Dutch government as a beneficiary of Dutch benefits any longer.

(Neither government provided me with any Stimulus checks during the very height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 as a result, and I only received my US checks a full 2 years later, in 2022, and nothing from the Dutch government. Needless to say this nearly killed me in my Hollywood office at the time, and my current homelessness is a direct result of this.)

My Dutch passport with 5-year Academic International Student Visa (F-1), as well as B-1/B-2 Visitors/Business Visa. The Forced Marriage lasted from November 3 of 1992 to August 4 of 1994. My work visa was issued on November 13 of 1992, exactly 10 days after the marriage, and expired during the marriage, on November 12 of 1993. The divorce was filed in January 24 of 1994 and finalized on August 4 of 1994.

Nor has the Laemmle Theatres been held responsible, after hiring me on my lawfully acquired SSN along with my 1-year work permit, as well as CA ID and Dutch passport with F-1 visa, in 1993, and keeping me on their payroll for nearly 10 years on a Full-Time basis (1990s), while now denying my paperwork was real in an effort to deny me my pension and other benefits. (The Social Security Administration has confirmed my benefits however.)

Los Angeles City College and my parents had entered me into the Curricular Training Program in 1992, a work study program allowing me part-time work in my field of study, and I was hired by theater manager Tom Fisher, under the impression that he understood I was part of the work study program we extensively talked about during my job interview.

The Laemmle Theatres never filled out any of the Dutch Social Security forms I presented and I was subsequently denied Dutch Child Tax Credit.

I was most definitely hired as a Film Student, or based on me being a Film Student at the time, even though I was also married to a US citizen (Erik Bergquist) who had started the Adjustment-Of-Status (I-485) without my full knowledge nor my consent.

(And even if they had hired me as the spouse of a US citizen with a pending Green Card application instead, it would have been lawful, as my work permit or Employment Authorization Document was real and valid.)

My lawfully acquired and valid Social Security Number from 1992. There is no rightful and valid reason that my Work Authorization Conditions have not been removed in the 30 years I have resided in the US, and 10-plus years I have been employed by the Laemmle Theatres and others since my legal arrival as an F-1 International Student of Film, Forced into Marriage in 1992, and with an Adjustment-Of-Status which I did not want nor require during my time as a lawful Film Student. My F-1 was valid for 5-years and extensions were possible for transfer from Community College for an AA to a 4-year University for a BA in Film, as was stated on my 1–20 School Letter of Admission. And as you can see, my SSN starts with a 6, unlike ITINs which start with a 9.

Apparently the school nor the Dutch government were in any way notified of this immigration marriage, and my parents eventually both died without ever fully knowing of the marriage at all. My ever generous parents, despite this, fully financially supported me until their respective dying days, my father in 2015 of a heart attack and my mother in 2020 of COVID-19, and that is the only reason I am still alive today.

It was my screenwriting teacher at Los Angeles City College, Tom Stempel, who initially suggested the job at the Laemmle Theatres to me, even though many people in my circle, especially the European Youth Hostel in Venice Beach where I lived at the time, were aware of the Laemmle Theatres and the fact that they were hiring. The theater chain’s Santa Monica location, then called the Monica 4-Plex, now the Monica Film Center, was a popular hangout for European tourists.

Los Angeles City College and the Laemmle Theatres shared several projectionists, whom screenwriting teacher Tom Stempel was also friends with, and he frequented the theater throughout my employment, even during my John Cassavetes Film Retrospective in 2001, just days before the Laemmle Theatres fired me without giving me a reason.

The Laemmle Theaters’ main projectionist Lou Honeycutt particularly disliked me, while I got along with most of the other projectionists. Tom Stempel was good friends with Lou Honeycutt, and would frequently stop by to watch the Western Series, a long running morning weekend series of primarily John Wayne films, and lounge in the projection booth with Lou for the rest of the day. Lou had also called my mother an “import” when she was on vacation in Los Angeles with my father and visited the theater on a day trip to Santa Monica.)

It was the Controller at the Laemmle Theaters, Kevin Gallagher, who ultimately ordered my firing in 2001, just after 9/11, having an assistant manager named R. Vernotico do the dirty job, of effectively banning me from the premises under the threat of police arrest if I did not comply. I recognize this now as a thinly veiled deportation threat, primarily to get out of paying me my rightfully earned benefits, and to get out of an involuntary servitude situation themselves. (They routinely hired foreigners from Eastern Europe, Central America and Asian countries, who did not always have proper documentation, before cleaning house several times when the US got stricter on immigration, notably in 1996 and 2001.)

My own decade long Full-Time employment, sometimes requiring working double shifts between various theater locations, and without any promotion ever, was most definitely involuntary in nature, as my SSN had work authorization restrictions listed on it, which they knew as I had presented my SSN card upon request, effectively not allowing me to get hired elsewhere, except through lying through omission, (that is pretending to be a US citizen, which I had an issue with, despite me easily “passing as American.”)

Divorce papers from Forced Child/Minor Marriage to future co-screenwriter of The Fast and the Furious, Erik Bergquist from Palos Verdes, who was then a fellow film student and 24, while I was a lawful International Student, and 19, and in my first semester of Film School, Los Angeles City College. My EAD or 1-year Work Permit expired in November of 1993, so during the marriage, and required the US spouse’s signature for renewal, and which was not given by him. The divorce was finalized in the lobby of the Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, now the Laemmle’s Monica Film Center, during work. I was still attending Film School, the Out-Of-State tuition for the first year paid for in advance, an Affidavit-Of-Support signed by my father, and my tuition supplemented by the Dutch Government through the Dutch Child Tax Credit program.

Nor has my spouse of 16 years, and former boss at the Laemmle Theatres, Mario Luza, ever been held responsible, for forcing me into a second marriage in 2007, in his family’s hometown Chula Vista, close to the Mexican border, after harassing me for years throughout my employment, and speculating about my immigration status throughout. He apparently for years assumed I had been hired illegally at the Laemmle Theatres as a supposed undocumented immigrant.

(His family is of Peruvian heritage and have no clue about International Student Programs or lawful immigration from First World Countries under special immigration treaties, like the Schengen visa contract, and very much treat me like an undocumented economic migrant til this day. They are also extremely religious and right-wing Trump supporters, and are actual conspiracy theorists.)

Mario Luza himself has since long come around on LGBTQ rights but has done nothing to publicly or legally support my case as of yet, and is in effect doing the US’ job for them, of holding me hostage in a forced marriage for which he will ultimately be rewarded with all my belongings, my IP, and my Social Security Benefits the SSA acknowledges exist in their records.

He has been able to get by on my parents’ money for decades because of this as well, and has even been able to gain the trust of film industry professionals themselves, who apparently assume he might be the one to ultimately do business with as the producing partner of my documentary.

I am partially to blame for this as I have frequently introduced him as my producing partner, and which he at this point still is, but film industry people, please recognize hereby that I have always had a lawfully acquired and valid Social Security Number and I am in fact the main Film Producer, besides writer and director, of my own documentary.

(I’ve paid for too many Film Festival events and finance panels and film organization memberships and special events, where people have started to shift their focus from me to him, thinking on some level they can cut me out of my own film and falsely assume he is the filmmaker or sole producer instead and I am merely the “subject” of the documentary, by wrongly assuming he is the only one with a Social Security Number.

All my writing and filmmaking efforts for the last 3 decades have been auto-ethnographical as I come from a literary background, the Beat writers mainly, and have lifelong influences of independent and personal filmmakers such as John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese and Dennis Hopper. I am the artist and the subject, and personally see absolutely no difference between the two.

Anyone even slightly interested in my film is going to have to do business with me directly and primarily.)

My John Cassavetes Film Retrospective. From L to R: Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, Lelia Goldoni, and Bregman Films’ Orlando G. (Gabriella) Bregman and Mario Luza. The Laemmle Theatres, Santa Monica (2001) Photo by Jen Tierney.

I will end this note by stating that I don’t believe any of this injustice and lifelong suffering would have ever befallen me if I had not been trans-masculine, lesbian, or of partial Asian descent as a Dutch citizen, and European Union citizen.

My case is not even technically an immigration case but a discrimination case and I therefore am calling upon not primarily or only immigration lawyers anymore but civil rights/ discrimination (ACLU) lawyers within my circles by now to handle my legal matters from here on in.

(I’ve met and paid too many immigration lawyers who have tried to handle my case as an asylum seeking one, wrongly assuming I am a Person Of Color from a “Second or Third World” country, and transgender on top, if even acknowledging this at all, and therefore completely misleading me and trying to get me in even deeper trouble than I’m already in, as no Dutch Citizen and European Union Citizen can claim asylum anywhere, and this simply does not reflect my status as a former Film Student, and one of privilege on top, as some my own family has a long and rich and famous bloodline in the Netherlands.

I even believe by now it was extremely convenient for the US to cut me off from the Netherlands and my family there, to reap the maximum financial rewards by holding me in indefinite “illegal status” here.

The Dutch government itself has also done very little to protect me, and doesn’t seem to mind losing any Dutch citizen of legally recognized slave descent to a foreign country, especially if it were to ever come to “reparations” money. The Dutch King has officially apologized for slavery after all.

And I obviously was trafficked/“immigrated” against my will from a First World country with possibly the best benefits in the world, the Netherlands, to a country with a benefits system comparable to that of the Second or Third world, the US.)