What is known is that Bolante arrived at the Los Angeles airport from Seoul, South Korea on July 7, was taken into custody by immigration officials and is now at the San Pedro immigration detention center near Los Angeles. Everything after that is murky.

Laurie Haley, a spokeswoman for immigration and customs enforcement in Los Angeles said Bolante’s tourist visa was not valid because it had been revoked by the US Embassy in the Philippines.

She said Bolante was being “processed for removal” but could not say when this might happen.

Asked if Bolante had applied for asylum she said “that is a privacy issue which I can neither confirm nor deny." Reliable official sources told The Manila Mail Bolante was not being held against his will and was merely “housed” at the San Pedro detention center.

Bolante is believed to be seeking some form of American protection.

If it’s just a simple case of coming to the US without a valid visa a person is “summarily removed,” or put on the first plane back to where he or she came from, said Januario Azarcon, a Manila Mail columnist and well-known immigration lawyer in the Washington metropolitan area.

So why is Bolante still in Los Angeles?

Did he actually apply for asylum or is he being held for other still unknown reasons?

What is certain is that Asiana which flew Bolante to LA did not know his visa was invalid or else it would not have allowed him to board the plane because of stiff penalties involved.

Did Bolante himself know his visa was not valid but flew in anyway to seek asylum or was it really a case of not knowing he had a canceled visa, a hitch which was further aggravated by other problems.

Peter Gordon, Los Angeles airport’s acting port director for US Customs and Border Protection, said that although the Philippine Senate named Bolante in an arrest order, the US government’s main concern is that Bolante appears to have arrived in the country illegally.

Why was his visa canceled? And why did Bolante reject consular help at an immigration hearing of his case, citing a need for privacy?

Azarcon said if Bolante simply came to the US without a valid visa he would have been deported by now.

“Because he’s still here I suspect he may have applied for refugee status or asylum," Azarcon said.

The Senate called for Bolante’s arrest after he refused to testify in the fertilizer fund anomaly and left the country. His testimony could prove embarrassing and potentially damaging to any number of senior government officials.

Azarcon said it takes time for US immigration to investigate and determine if a person’s request for asylum is genuine or not.

“If the application is found to be frivolous you can be barred from any future consideration by the US government. You cannot come back," he said.

“The moment someone comes to our border and says he is afraid to go back he will be taken into custody as long as an immigration officer on the scene determines he has expressed a credible fear for his safety," said Sharon Rummery of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“There is a high level of confidentially surrounding asylum.

People filing for asylum may be in danger, their love ones may be in danger so we never, never talk about it and asylum stories are hard to pursue," Rummery said.

Whatever the reason for his detention the mystery surrounding Bolante has spawned any number of conspiracy theories, the latest involving National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales.

Gonzales arrived unannounced in Washington at the height of the Bolante mystery and some Filipinos in the area immediately took this to mean he was here in connection with the Bolante case.

It didn’t help matters much when Philippine embassy officials declined to comment on Gonzales’ presence in the nation’s capital.