Immigration Advice Service (IAS) has correlated recent spikes in searches relating to Irish citizenship on its website to events in the US.
A sharp rise in online page visits for 'Irish citizenship by Descent' and other Irish citizenship and passport-related pages has highlighted a pattern, IAS said this week.
Online searches mirrored high immigration activity and rhetoric in the US, as well as the activities of President Donald Trump before and after his inauguration, with sharp spikes of 250% or more following four key events.
Searches for citizenship, Irish passports, and dual citizenship increased 250% or more during all four key events.
Searches like how to get permanent residency in Ireland and how to get sponsorship to work in Ireland showed 200% more page visits, IAS said.
The first significant surge in the number of visits for Irish residency and citizenship pages occurred on September 13, 2024 when Trump amplified his immigration rhetoric, reciting the ‘snake’ parable to suggest that immigrants are inherently dangerous and a threat to American society.
IAS said it experienced a 332% increase in engagement across its IAS Ireland website compared with the previous day.
(Immigration Advice Services)
The second spike coincided with the election results on November 5, which peaked at a 314% increase following the announcement that Donald Trump would serve a second term in the White House.
Searches didn’t return to relatively normal numbers until 10 days after the event, IAS said.
(Immigration Advice Services)
The third spike occurred on December 5, when Trump made key policy announcements and personnel appointments before his inauguration. His appointment of former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott as Commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) saw the focus fall on stringent border security, resulting in a 358% spike compared to the previous day.
The fourth significant spike occurred on January 19 and remained consistently higher than usual searches for five days after Trump took office on January 20.
The week before the inauguration saw a steady build-up of website visitors from the US, IAS said.
On January 10, the Irish Citizenship by Descent page on IAS Ireland experienced 14 times more traffic than the same day the previous year. The peak dropped but remained between 300-600% higher until election day, when the page remained 70% higher than the previous year.
(Immigration Advice Services)
IAS noted that it further saw a spike in immigration searches on its site on January 28 when Trump signed an executive order blocking refugees, but this did not have a bearing on engagement with Irish citizenship pages.
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