Living in limbo: The harsh reality of the undocumented Irish in Trump's America

As the Taoiseach prepares for an Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump, undocumented Irish in the US tell Sean Murray of their fears in light of the president's mass deportation policy

Donald Trump has plenty of supporters among Irish Americans but many without documentation are nervous in mass deportations. Picture: Yuki Iwamura/AFP/Getty

Every year the taoiseach of the day travels to Washington DC for a date with the president of the United States.

The doors open to the Irish. A former diplomat said that European counterparts stare “absolutely agog” as, each year, the Irish get the attention of the US capital all to itself for a day.

“We’d be a laughing stock” if we were to close the door on it, the diplomat said.

And, each year, the Irish press corps travels en masse to follow the taoiseach and report on what’s said behind closed doors as the ceremonial bowl of shamrock is handed over.

Even with a man with as short an attention span as critics claim Donald Trump has, having it all to yourself for a brief period is an opportunity Micheál Martin will want to make count.

As regular as these St Patrick’s Day visits to the White House are, just as frequent are the lines distributed to journalists in advance that “the undocumented” will be one of the things each taoiseach will raise in the Oval Office.

Listen to Land of the Free, an Irish Examiner special investigation podcast series where Sean Murray looks at the plight of the undocumented Irish in Donald Trump’s America.

In 2017, Enda Kenny said he would “renew the case on behalf of the hard-working, tax-paying Irish people in the United States who for too long now have been living in the shadows” when he met Trump.

Leo Varadkar was going to follow suit in 2018 and in the years to follow, including last year when he met with Joe Biden.

And again, Micheál Martin has said he’ll make that plea for the undocumented again this year.

We don’t really know how many undocumented Irish people live in the United States. There’s no way of knowing for sure — given that they are, by definition “undocumented”, there’s no official record to draw numbers from.

The Irish Government estimates it to be 10,000. Some experts say it may be significantly less than that. Nevertheless, there is still a significant cohort of Irish citizens caught in a bleak American limbo.

Gerry Hanley of Paddy Barry's Ales and Spirits in Quincy, MA

So many of them came over when times were bad back home. Tens of thousands of people came across the Atlantic in the 1980s on tourist visas to the US with the full intention of staying to work.

The Irish back then knew all the tricks to start embedding themselves in society. You could go to the bank and say you were travelling around the States and didn’t want to carry cash all the time in order to get a bank account.

Depending on the state, all you needed was your passport and proof of address to get a driving licence. If you had the skills needed, or someone you knew could get you in, you could walk into a job.

Many of those who initially went over illegally eventually “got sorted” to use the term so many still living over there use today. You got your green card. You got the right visa. You may eventually have got citizenship.

‘Sensitive to Irish needs’

This was in no small part due to the incredibly strong Irish lobby in Congress at the time, during the days of the Ronald Reagan presidency.

Brian O’Neill’s uncle was at the forefront of that.

Tip O’Neill was the speaker of the US House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987 and one of the four horsemen of Irish-Americans who pressed home the importance of a breakthrough in Northern Ireland at the time.

Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill whose nephew,  Brian O’Neill, tells Sean Murray about the extraordinarily strong Irish lobby in the US in the 1980s.

The Irish lobby also exercised its substantial clout when it came to immigration at that time.

“America was sensitive to Irish needs at the time,” said Brian, a Boston-based immigration lawyer with 50 years’ experience under his belt. “My uncle was picked for the house, for Christ’s sake.

“The original visas were called the Donnelly visas.

“When they passed the 1986 Immigration Act, remember how they set aside the lottery, which was 50,000 [visas]. 20,000 went to the Irish. It doesn’t make sense but that was politics in those days. And the Irish had the ability to get it done. Reagan was willing to sign it. And that was the immigration act of 1986, that’s what changed.”

It was the likes of these Donnelly visas that allowed Irish men and women to “get sorted” and get the right to work and remain in the United States. Many of them are still there.

Such incredible support for Ireland was not to be replicated in Congress again, despite many false dawns in recent years.

And those who didn’t “get sorted” are also still there. Whether through it never being possible through work, or through family, or a series of bad circumstances, some never got sorted.

Boston immigration lawyer Brian O'Neill marvels at the Reagan administration setting aside 20,000 of 50,000 visas in the 1986 Immigration Act: 'It doesn’t make sense but that was politics in those days.'

One may think of undocumented as “living in the shadows”, as Enda Kenny put it. But that’s only partly true. The undocumented Irish live and work in their communities. They pay taxes. Their kids go to schools. They eat in local restaurants and drink in local pubs.

It could be more of a case of hiding in plain sight.

Aisling*, an undocumented Irish woman living in a major US city for most of the last decade, sends her children to school and creche each day. She goes to work, and pays tax. Employed in hospitality, she and her colleagues are trying to find the positives where they can.

“That’s the thing,” she said. “The entire kitchen is all undocumented Hispanics. Like every single one of them. Everyone’s a little bit nervous, but we’re trying to make light of it.

“Last week we were joking ‘oh what are you going to do when you get home?’. Another said ‘I’ll save you a seat on the bus’.

“And I mean the administration have said they’re targeting restaurants and construction sites. Anywhere where say there are immigrants. Like stereotypical undocumented jobs.”

People are a bit more nervous. They’re more nervous as Donald Trump is back in charge.

But it’s not a new fear that suddenly you could be deported. That’s a concern that is ever-present, in the back of the mind, lingering.

It could be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or even as simple as getting pulled over by a police officer.

On a bookshelf in the office of Boston immigration lawyer, Brian O'Neill, are treasured photos of him with John Hume. 

“Somebody gets hooked on a criminal case, particularly if it’s violence” Mr O’Neill explained. “That’s the number one priority for ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement].

“If a guy was picked up for driving under [the influence], they get all the reports every day. If a local police department arrest you for driving under, that goes into a national database and it’s registered with the Feds and Immigration gets it, and the State Department gets it.”

The immigration lawyer said that, in Massachusetts, ICE would wait outside court for when a person would be about to appear for whatever they’d been charged with. And the person might not make it into that courtroom.

“As you were walking up the steps, there were two ICE officers. They’d take you, put you in the car and bring you out to Burlington to charge to you, and maybe never let you out of jail and put you on a plane.”

‘You got a problem’

Among undocumented communities, ICE is a word you don’t want to hear. You certainly don’t want to hear them at your door.

Videos of ICE knocking on doors are circulating on WhatsApp groups. ICE arriving at your door means you could be about to have the rug pulled from under you.

As a community, people are sharing information on what to say and do if that happens.

So-called cheat sheets in English and Spanish are being distributed by immigration lawyers — and among undocumented people themselves — on how to assert your rights in such a situation.

“I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my Fifth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution,” one shared with the Irish Examiner says.

“I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my Fourth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door.”

If you look at the ICE website, it proudly proclaims in multiple daily press releases the work it is doing to remove from the US people living there illegally. Most of the releases relate to people accused of crimes, many of them serious. But not all.

“ICE Washington, DC and FBI Washington, DC arrest 7 illegal aliens in Northern Virginia operation,” declares one from mid-February.

They even give a breakdown of who was arrested, including several who never came into contact with the authorities before but who had “illegally entered the US”.

An investigation by the Guardian shortly into Trump’s reign found that thousands of these press releases, some of which were about decades-old enforcement, topped search results and had been updated with a timestamp from after the inauguration.

It is almost as if the intention was to portray an administration already getting on with the job of deporting people by the thousands.

And this is the cause for concern, in a similar way to how it was when Donald Trump became US president the first time around. Will he do what he said he was going to do?

In an interview with NBC after winning the election, Trump was asked if it was his plan to deport everyone who lives in the US illegally over the coming years.

“Well, I think you have to do it,” he said. “And it’s a very tough thing to do. It’s... you have to have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally.”

When pushed on whether this would be realistic, he replied: “We have no choice. First of all, they’re costing us a fortune. We’re starting with the criminals and we got to do it. We’re starting with others, and we’re going to see how it goes.”

In his inauguration speech, he also declared that his administration would “begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came”.

And there’s more. The people with whom he has surrounded himself this time, compared to last, also has people worried. Like Stephen Miller. And Tom Homan.

Mr Homan used to be the head of the ICE agency and is now Trump’s “border czar”. Following the inauguration, he told ABC that while criminals would be targeted initially there would also be “collateral arrests” and that anyone in the country unlawfully was “on the table”.

“When we find [a criminal], he’s going to be with others [and] if they’re in the country illegally, they’re coming too,” he said. “So if you’re in the country illegally, you got a problem.”

‘This is what they mean’

In an old, converted school in Chicago is a group called Irish Community Services. It is partially funded by the Irish Government under the emigrant support programme.

Around the world, the Irish Government will fund projects under this programme to the tune of €16.49m. Many US-based services, such as those providing immigration support, receive six-figure sums per year.

The Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago

Irish Community Services executive director Paul Dowling said Donald Trump’s election has brought more worry to the community.

“I feel like Trump’s election and campaign, I think immigration was even more of his running points than it was last time,” he said. “I think that’s probably part of the reason that there is more concern.”

James O’Malley, a New York-based immigration lawyer from Limerick, said that we have to take what Trump and his officials are saying at face value.

“We have to accept that if they’re saying this, this is what they mean,” he said.

“Logistically, it’s a big issue and a big, big challenge.

“From a practical point of view, just to go out into communities and start rounding people up. I mean, who knows who to round up?

“Will they just start rounding everybody up and prove that they’re not to be deported? That in itself is a bit frightening really.

“Taking it at face value it smacks of a zero-tolerance ideology. It doesn’t matter if you were born in say, Co Mayo or if you were born in El Salvador in pure terms. And I don’t think it would.”

Dubliner Fiona McEntee, founder of the Chicago-based McEntee Law Group, said such was the rhetoric that the calls to her practice have been surging in recent times.

She also said that any suggestion that Trump is actually talking about specific migrant groups needs to be put to bed.

“That whole ‘who he really means’ needs to just be thrown out the window,” she said. “Tom Homan, who has an Irish last name, is saying if we’re going after so-and-so, and you’re there, you’re coming. You’re going too.

“Okay, we have the benefit of white privilege so maybe we’re not going to get racially profiled as much. But if you’re in a workplace and [...] if there’s a raid, just because you’re Irish doesn’t mean that you’re going to you know be spared, right?”

While experts say that ICE and the courts don’t have the resources to literally deport millions of people as has been touted by the Trump administration, that threat of getting caught and getting sent home is a very real one.

‘You can’t get away from it’

In the last decades, the story of the undocumented Irish in America carries similar themes. The missed life events back home. The funerals and weddings. The tearful airport goodbye, not sure when you might see that loved one again. Not being able to come home and the impact that has.

You could be living there 30 years, be totally settled in your life and not exactly living in fear. But you can’t ignore it. It’s something that’s always there.

But while the themes are similar, each story is unique to that person. And carries it with it its own weight and pressures and fears.

Thomas* has laid down roots in the east coast city where he lives. He makes a good living and is very much settled. There are so many reasons why he feels he has to stay where he is. But sometimes the lure of home becomes very strong.

“It’s the Christenings and Communions at first, they’re not too bad. Then it’s the weddings. And then it’s the funerals. Each time there’s a funeral, I say to myself — ‘fuck it, I have to go home I can’t do it anymore’.

“But I can’t just up and leave. I’ve a business here with other people relying on me. They’ve mouths to feed as I do.

Fiona McEntee and Grace Duggan at the McEntee Law Group in Chicago. Of Trump's immigration policy, Fiona says: 'It doesn’t matter if you were born in say, Co Mayo or if you were born in El Salvador':

“The one that killed me was my mother passing away. I hadn’t actually seen her in person for years when she passed away. That hit me the worst.”

He doesn’t feel in imminent danger of being deported. But some certainty after two decades living and working in the US would certainly be helpful.

“You kind-of can’t get away from it now though with that fella back in charge,” he said.

“Family back home in Ireland asking what things are like. I don’t know if what happens to me day-to-day has changed that much. But it’s more the mood. I know in my situation now there’s no real chance of me getting a green card. Over the years, it looked like it might happen at some stages and then it didn’t.

“Look, that’s life. I’m doing well for myself here. I’m making a good few bob. But something has changed. I see the way some people talk about migrants from other areas. It’s so negative. They don’t realise that I’m one too. It’s like they don’t count me, and it’s the “other” ones that should be gotten rid of, if you know what I mean.”

Andrew* is in a similar boat. He’s been living there so long, he doesn’t think he’s going to get a knock on the door from ICE in the morning. But he’s remaining cautious too.

“It’s never happened for me,” he said, referring to obtaining a green card or US citizenship. “It’s happened for loads of lads I’ve known over the years. I’m happy for them. My life isn’t any less than theirs.

“I’m still having a great time here. I don’t know what’ll happen but despite everything [Trump] says, I don’t think I’m getting kicked out of here tomorrow. But I know I could be.

“Having said that, I would like to be able to go back every now and then. On my driving licence I can go around the States, but obviously that’s not the same. I just wish I could head home on holiday every now and then.”

Aisling’s* life could be turned upside down at any point and she knows it. She has two children, but is no longer in a relationship with the father of her eldest daughter. She was subject to domestic abuse and obtained a restraining order against this man.

“I had actually decided to move back to Ireland,” she said. “But I couldn’t actually get an Irish passport without the father’s signature, even though I had sent paperwork with the order of protection and I wrote a letter saying. you know, he was no longer in the picture — there was abuse.

“It meant I wasn’t allowed to get the Irish passport. I was able to get her an American one. But the hard thing was having an American passport I was worried for me travelling on an Irish one and her on an American one with two last names. Because she obviously has a different last name to me because of the father.

“I wouldn’t have been able to come back. But the risk would have been they could have her taken away from me at the airport.”

While she’s now in a happy relationship and raising her children, she has to contend with not being able to bring them back to Ireland to visit her family. Her loved ones have to come to her. And she can’t go with them.

“My mom was actually here for Thanksgiving and leaving her back at the airport was horrific,” Aisling said.

“My four-year-old wrapped her arms and legs around my mother at the airport. We had to pry her off my mother. She screamed and she howled and she was like ‘nanny I don’t want you to leave’.

“My mom was crying. There was actually a group of women waiting in line for security watching us crying. It’s horrific. You don’t think of this before you leave [Ireland].”

‘Cut a deal’

Given the situations so many people like Aisling, and Thomas and Andrew are in, there will be plenty hoping that Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s pledge to raise the undocumented are more than just empty words.

And, when it comes to a character like Donald Trump, the question remains if we even hope to achieve anything when making this call.

Former Irish ambassador to the US Dan Mulhall thinks there is merit in trying to press home the advantage Ireland has by getting an audience with the American president, which makes this country the envy of other European counterparts.

Mr Mulhall said that Trump was receptive to the idea of a deal for the Irish under the last administration and that a quid pro quo could be an effective strategy to finally “crack the issue” of the undocumented Irish in America.

“I suggested that maybe for the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence next year, that we could maybe introduce a programme for a certain number of visas for young Americans to come to Ireland for four or five years,” he said.

“And therefore, they’d qualify for naturalisation if they were Irish Americans and desiring to live in Ireland on a more longer-term basis.

“And we could do that, and then we could ask for reciprocity from the American system, which is a much easier thing to pull off.

“Trump is often positive about a kind of a deal being done and something, you know, being offered in return for things that are done for the benefit of the United States.”

Ireland may find itself on the faultlines on several fronts as a Trump-led US clashes with Europe over trade and other issues. Any hope of reaching a solution that can benefit the thousands of Irish living undocumented in the US appears slim.

But, given the situation they are facing into, it means Ireland must at least try.

• Some names in this article have been changed to protect people’s anonymity

This article was originally published on March 8, 2025.