Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago
I HAVE WRITTEN on several previous occasions about what it was like to grow up in a very Irish Boston in the 1980s and 1990s. Strange as it may sound in 2026, a majority of my pals had one or two Irish born parents. The vast majority of these women and men hailed from counties on the western seaboard. And the vast majority of those were from Galway.
Moreover, the young Irish were everywhere. My contemporaries and I formed lifelong friendships with our Irish cousins who, having been given phone numbers and addresses by their parents, came to our family homes in search of a sanctuary, a decent meal and, in some instances, details of potential work opportunities. Loads of them benefited from my uncle’s Donnelly Visa or the Morrison Visa programme that succeeded it.
Still, there were plenty who were unlucky and did not manage to regularise their status. Prior to 9/11, they could breathe fairly easily in their adopted United States, and even travel back and forth to Ireland. When the Twin Towers fell, however, there was a definite change. It tightened up considerably.
Whether owing to a stricter immigration regime or a booming Celtic Tiger economy, thousands returned home to a country that had changed significantly. As has been chronicled extensively, the amount of Irish born residents of the US has declined precipitously in recent decades. That said, I am invariably struck on visits by how many remained and by how many have continued to move to Boston in pursuit of an increasingly elusive American Dream.
Séamus Culleton is one of them. A plasterer by trade, who had two uncles in the Boston area, the promise of a fresh start in life and well-paid work in a fantastic place had to be a strong allure when he left his native Kilkenny behind and arrived, presumably, at Logan Airport in 2009. Like others before and after him, he overstayed his tourist visa.
He was undeniably wrong to do so. The law is the law. Every nation on earth has the right to control its borders. To his credit, though, Culleton has apparently built a business, has not attracted the attention of law enforcement since 2009 and was in the final stages of acquiring a Green Card, thanks to his marriage to a US citizen.
Culleton’s story has been covered thoroughly here this week and also featured in American media. While Irish politicians have decried the unfortunate fate that has befallen the 42-year-old, others have claimed that he warrants no sympathy whatsoever and argue that, having overstayed his legal welcome, he should simply accept his deportation.
Their perspective is unduly harsh for multiple reasons. First is that it does not demonstrate any cognisance of the importance of Irish immigrants – not to mention those of other ethnicities – to the economic and social fabric of my beloved home city. We Boston Irish see in them the lived experience of our own relations, who would never have made it across the Atlantic if the laws governing entry back then were as restrictive as they are today.
Second, many Americans who are reluctant to leave home soil instead go to Boston, where they can have an Irish-themed vacation and be served at pubs/restaurants by Irish wait staff and listen to songs played by Irish musicians. There is actually a Boston Irish Tourism Association. This is worth millions annually to Massachusetts and New England. Additionally, skilled Irish tradespeople, such as Culleton, are perpetually in demand.
Third, as ever, it is vital to distinguish the letter of the law from the spirit of the law. Culleton wrongly violated the terms he agreed to when he went to America. Yet as his legal team has been highlighting, what he has been subjected to during the past five months constitutes grossly disproportionate retribution for a pretty minor transgression in the grand scheme of things. His situation is a considerable distance from that of the violent criminals and undesirables who the metaphorical statute book should be thrown at.
His plight, and that of several other Irish people evidently in ICE custody, may make for an exceptionally tricky meeting in the White House next month when An Taoiseach Micheál Martin is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump. It seems that much more of the confab occurs with the glare of the cameras on, rather than in private.
Martin’s naming Culleton or another Irish person in a similar predicament in front of the assembled press would be unwise, given the president’s unpredictability and volatility, although his generally favourable disposition toward “the Irish” and his awareness of Irish America’s electoral power militate somewhat against an outburst.
Indeed, this latter factor could help precipitate a resolution of this vexed matter through diplomatic and/or political channels prior to 17 March. Fingers crossed. Every effort will be made at this stage, as some understandably query why more wasn’t done already and posit that Ireland’s influence in the US is on the wane. To varying extents, they have a point.
There is a broader question in this context for Irish America, a sizeable swathe of which is solidly in President Trump’s corner. The Irish undocumented, despite what all of them and those of us reflexively in their corner had hoped, are not immune to the ongoing overreach of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. They mightn’t be the priority, yet they clearly can be collateral damage.
We on this island know that there are dependable allies, primarily on the Democratic side of the aisle, who we can count on to defend the rights of the Irish in the US. Whether they are there legally or illegally, they have basic human rights.
But I would ask differently minded Irish Americans – whose politics are more conservative, who inhabit Trump’s orbit and/or are convinced that he is doing a great job overall, who aren’t too bothered by the removal of undocumented immigrants from south of the US border – when will you decide that, on this issue at least, enough is enough?
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say