Irish citizens illegally in the US under Trump?

The thing is that there are people on here who have no sympathy for people who are illegal over there for years, and insist that they should have regularized their status years ago, and so tough s**t.

The reality is that the vast vast majority who went to America since the mid 1990s without a visa or work permit or whatever and overstayed has never had the chance to regularize their status.

With the expectation of marrying a US citizen and getting a green card from that and then getting citizenship themselves there has been no path for the illegals to regularize their status.

Post 9/11 and with the increased wealth in Ireland the need to go over to America illegally diminished.

So the majority of illegals now are likely to be in their 40s, 50s and older.

They have spent half their lives over there, they have got by by working, owning businesses, having families etc etc all under the radar.

So it would be a huge shock to them to be sent back to an Ireland they barely recognize.

It's not young lads having the crack and if they get caught so what, it's far more complicated than that.

From my own experience of living there and hanging out with them at the time (late 90s) a lot came over with the intention of staying and basically seeing how it would go.

A guy might come over to play football for the summer and then decide not to go home, or they might tell their buddy who would come over the next year and end up staying.

Some had brothers or sisters who got green cards through the Donnelly or Morrison visa lotteries but didn't get them themselves, but they still went over because they had a family member there.

But a lot were young, early twenties, like us all at that age you try something, if it doesn't work out, big deal.

I've not been back in 20 years myself but if I do get the chance to go again I'd love to find out just how many actually are still there.

I know a lot both legal and illegal that have come home over the years.

Over here our answer is to reward people who break the rules with an amnesty.

Former Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the amnesty wouldn't be a one off event.

Seeing as 15000 came forward for this amnesty how many more are out there?

I'd like to see something like ICE in this country to find all these illegals.

And also punish anyone who employs them.

Describing people as "illegals" is so dehumanising.

What happens if you're a child of somebody who came to this country? Children were deported just last week. How are they causing a problem that is solved by deportation?

A quick check of the Migrant Rights Centre estimates that we have between 20,000 and 26,000 undocumented migrants in Ireland. That is about 0.5% of the population of Ireland as per the last census. I don't agree that that small a group is the massive problem that people make out.

Western countries can tolerate a certain amount of illegal immigrants.

Because in reality these are the people that are willing to do the jobs natives are no longer willing to do.

They tend not to avail of state services, because they are illegal they don't want to draw attention to themselves.

So they are not a burden on the state.

They are here to work and make money.

This thread is about the US, however if you are in Ireland without a visa then you are not here legally, entitled to be here even if Ireland doesn’t have migration officers knocking down your door.

They can still use their irish passport to travel within the United states, if they have been keeping it up to do date. The new rule is a real ID license, or a passport. TSA agents aren't going to be doing immigration checks, they scan your passport and you're good to go.

Some (most? Not sure tbh.) states have driver authorisation cards which are available to those without legal immigration status. I think this should be an option everywhere, otherwise you would have those people driving without a license and unable to get insurance which would just cause problems for everyone else. I dont have an SSN as a spouse of an O1 visa holder (O3) but have a license, just not a real id one so I've always used my passport to travel internally. Not sure if in the future they intend to phase out these ones altogether?

So the law doesn’t apply to people who broke it a few years ago?? Weird logic.

yes they do have those licenses ceadaoin. But I can see those being phased out. RealID seems to be everywhere now. There will have to be documents for people in your situation obviously. Always find it hilarious that people are deemed “of exceptional ability” most of us are dumb as rocks 😀

While at the DMV they were still trying to make me sign up for voting. Despite not being a citizen.

Its not just non white people being deported

Ice has targets to meet x no of people being deported per week they are now looking on

Farms for illegal workers anyone who gets stopped by police if they don't have I'd and a working vida will be deported if you are working for cash you won't get a pension or medicare when they get old they,ll have to go back to Ireland farms employ illegal workers because they work for low wages

The point that was being made elsewhere is that if they entered under a visa waiver programme then they have already waived the right to due process, an immigration hearing etc as part of the entry process. Prior to Trump’s inauguration, there was speculation that “undocumented” Irish would be in a first wave as their deportation process would be simpler and effectively unchallengeable.