The federal government has arrested roughly 50 Irish migrants for deportation amid left-wing complaints that it is only deporting non-white migrants.
“Approximately 35 men and 21 women were taken into custody by ICE in Irish American strongholds of Boston, New York, and New Jersey,” according to ImmigrantsJournal.com. “Most of those taken into custody were young individuals who had overstayed their tourist visas, residing unlawfully in the country. ”
An Irish news site in Boston described one deported migrant:
A DONEGAL MAN who had lived in Boston for more than 15 years was deported to Ireland over the weekend, less than a month after he was detained by US immigration officials for violating his visa waiver. The 40-year-old man was deported from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts to Dublin on Friday evening. He is the father of two American-born children, aged nine and ten, and the former owner of a small construction company near Boston.
The deportation of Irish migrants contradicts routine claims of government racism by pro-migration, pro-diversity groups, even as it also creates jobs and wage gains for ordinary Americans.
“A second Trump administration will claim a mandate to decide immigration policy based on xenophobia and racism — flouting principles of fairness, human dignity, and the rule of law,” the ACLU claimed in 2024. “What the administration is doing is sometimes targeted, sometimes arbitrary, usually blatantly racist and always cruel,” TV host John Oliver said in May.
The left’s claim of racism is politically important because it provides an excuse for left-leaning judges, reporters, and lawyers to ignore the exploitative economics of government-migration policy.
“I don’t know how it would be other than not racist if you’re deporting Irish,” laughed Rosemary Jenks, the founder of the Immigration Accountability Project. The claim of racism, she added, is:
Just a ridiculous argument because the fact is, people are being deported because they’re here illegally. Doesn’t matter who they are, where they’re from, or anything else. If they’re here illegally, they’re subject to deportation… It’s a tired old trope. I mean, nobody buys it.
The other side calls everything they don’t like “racist.” This is no different. They’re trying to villainize law enforcement. They’re trying to villainize the laws, and it’s just not going to work
Irish migrants in America are asking the Irish embassy to lobby for exemptions, according to The Irish Times, a newspaper which serves as the New York Times of Ireland’s self-segregating elites. The paper reported in July:
As of the end of June, at least 41 Irish people had sought formal assistance from the department or the Irish Embassy in Washington after being served with U.S. deportation orders from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this year.
In the whole of 2024, the final year of the Biden administration, there were just 15 such requests for assistance, according to figures provided by the department.
Other Irish migrants are leaving quietly, partly to preserve a chance of later return, the newspaper noted:
Large numbers of people are likely to have accepted the deportation orders without challenge or without asking for consular help. There are an estimated 10,000 undocumented Irish people living in the United States.
The voluntary self-deportations include 69-year-old Matthew Morrison, who arrived in 1985 after being released from a U.K. jail for crimes linked to the Irish Republican Army. According to an August 8 report by The Marshall Project:
“Now, Morrison leans on a cane. He’s had several strokes. He said that the fear and uncertainty that he might be picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was more than he could bear. “I would bite the dust in an ICE holding cell,” Morrison told The Marshall Project — St. Louis before he left the U.S. “There is nothing to stop them from deporting me to Ecuador, South Sudan, or whatever. It’s really gotten insane here. It’s crazy what they are doing now, the Trump administration. You know what I mean?”
Many noncitizens have faced similar unknowns in hiding. Morrison has been in the public eye for a long time. He’s been in and out of the news since the 1990s. He was even the grand marshal of a parade. But the U.S. government denied his petition for an adjustment in immigration status because of crimes he was convicted of during “The Troubles” conflict in Northern Ireland. Morrison had omitted those from his original tourist visa application.
The New York-based Spirit news site reported in mid-July:
Gabriel Megahey was dubbed “the leader of the IRA in America” by prosecutors when he was convicted in 1983 of gunrunning and trying to buy surface-to-air missiles for the Provisional wing of the IRA.
Now 82 years old, he finished his prison sentence in Otisville Correctional Facility in 1988 and remained in the United States with his American-born wife and six kids. He says the Trump administration under its immigration crackdown is now trying to force him to leave the country by cutting benefits to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
“ICE sent me a letter last week. They said I’m a convicted felon. They are trying to freeze us out,” he said. The letter said all his government benefits will cease on Oct. 23. He told Straus News he won’t be able to afford the medications he needs to manage a heart condition once that happens. “It would cost me $4,000 to $5,000 a month to pay for it on my own. I can’t afford that. I’ll have to go home,” said Megahey, who was born in the Andersonstown neighborhood of West Belfast. In addition to their six children, he and his wife, Patricia McConnell Megahey, have 14 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, all born in the United States.
Despite the Irish deportations, pro-migration outlets are eager to promote claims of official racism.
“I believe the anti-immigrant pushes are racist,” said a migrant in Texas who was spotlighted by the left-wing Guardian newspaper. “We used to have the ability to pay fines before because we didn’t have criminal records, but I’ve heard from other immigrants, anyone being taken into custody by Ice [ICE], regardless of their situation, will be deported.”
NPR posted a July claim that ICE arrested a migrant in California because “she has dark skin.” The claim was made by the migrant’s brother, Carlos Barrera, who insisted, “They assumed she was Hispanic, and they took her… It’s the racial factor.”
Pro-migration critics, however, also ignore the economic exploitation of non-white migrants. In August 2024, the El Pais newspaper reported on the investor-led exploitation of powerless migrants:
Elías is a 32-year-old Cuban who arrived in Texas through the humanitarian parole program. When the Trump administration eliminated the benefits available to people who entered the country this way, Elías lost his work permit and driver’s license. Like many immigrants in similar situations, he decided to make a living with a rented account on the Lyft app, without legal status, working with fear. “Those apps don’t give you anything. They’re a trap. But that’s the way it is,” he says.
Although exact figures are lacking, it is estimated that between 3.5 and 4.5 million immigrants in the United States work for apps like Uber, DoorDash, or Lyft. Data from the Pew Research Center and McKinsey indicate that 45% of those working on these platforms are immigrants. In New York, the figure can reach 90%, according to the Independent Drivers Guild. This type of employment is known as the gig economy. Many see it as a way to earn extra income. Others, as a means of survival.
“On a good day, I’d make $120. But if you calculate it, what you’re left with isn’t much. Between gas, eating out and all that, it came to seven or eight dollars an hour,” Elías said.
Since 1990, investors and the U.S. government have inflated economic growth by importing millions of low-wage workers, apartment-sharing renters, taxpayer-funded consumers, and government-dependent residents. That migration bubble is now being deflated by President Donald Trump’s pro-American, wage-raising economic strategy.
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