The deportation of undocumented Irish immigrants in the US has increased to an alarming level, according to US citizenship, immigration and detention counselor, Kieran O’Sullivan. Based at Boston’s Irish Pastoral Center, O’Sullivan says he has never seen the level of fear in the immigrant community that exists today.
Official data shows that the number of Irish immigrants deported from the US has increased in the first year of the Trump administration, and O’Sullivan claimed in an interview with the RTE show, Morning Ireland, that the number was 34. There are approximately 50,000 Irish undocumented immigrants currently living in the US, and O’Sullivan says that the Irish Pastoral Center has been giving advice and help to such people for three decades.
O’Sullivan says there have been several disturbing high-profile detentions in Massachusetts over the course of the last 12 months. He claims that many people have been held in detention for as long as five weeks during the processing of paperwork, causing huge distress to their loved ones. O’Sullivan also slammed the US Congress for their failure to pass any form of meaningful immigration reform, adding that the pathway to gaining legal status in the US was massively complex.
O’Sullivan notes that many undocumented immigrants did not knowingly break the law, with the majority paying taxes and wanting to provide a better life for their families. He slammed the notion that undocumented immigrants pose a threat to the US.