Irish Examiner view: We lack compassion towards migrants

US President Joe Biden referred to his Irish ancestry in a speech about the difficulties facing migrants. Picture: Evan Vucci/AP

When US president Joe Biden was asked about the plight of migrants at the US-Mexico border during his first formal press conference, he referred to his own Irish ancestry again.

He recalled his great-grandfather’s perilous journey across the Atlantic in a coffin ship and the fact that he left “because of what the Brits had been doing”. In some quarters, his use of the pejorative term ‘Brits’ raised a few eyebrows, but his comments have gone down well with Irish and Irish-American audiences only too willing to recall the UK’s colonial history and the mass emigration and millions of deaths caused by the Great Famine in the 19th century.