Fiona McEntee, an Irish immigration lawyer who practices in Chicago, told IrishCentral on Tuesday that she has been “inundated” ever since reports spread that the new Trump administration was poised to mount ‘immigration raids.'
"Inundated, inundated," McEntee told IrishCentral, adding that she's been fielding "nonstop calls" from both individuals and employers.
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the “incoming Trump administration is planning a large-scale immigration raid in Chicago.”
The following day, Tom Homan, former acting director of ICE and President Trump's 'border czar,' told the Washington Post that the incoming administration was reconsidering whether to launch immigration raids in Chicago after preliminary details leaked in news reports.
“ICE will start arresting public safety threats and national security threats on day one," Homan offered, adding, "We’ll be arresting people across the country, uninhibited by any prior administration guidelines."
Homan added that he didn't know why Chicago was mentioned specifically in the reports.
“This is nationwide thing," he said. "We’re not sweeping neighborhoods. We have a targeted enforcement plan.”
The Washington Post noted that all administrations have made arresting criminals a "top priority" and that typically, lists of immigrants who have disregarded deportation orders are developed.
"Officers may also arrest other immigrants who cannot prove they have legal status, a tactic the agency refers to as 'collateral arrests,'' the publication added. "Biden largely banned such arrests in hopes that Congress would pass a law making undocumented immigrants eligible for citizenship."
In the fiscal year 2024, ICE reported 271,484 removals from the US, 60 of which were Irish citizens. It was the largest number of removals since the nearly 316,000 removals during the Obama administration in the fiscal year 2014. The most removals seen during the Trump administration were 267,000 in fiscal year 2019.
It's unclear how much the reported immigration raids could impact undocumented Irish people specifically, mainly because the details of the reported raids have been vague, by design.
However, the Trump administration's focus does appear to be on people who enter the US illegally via the southern border.
By and large, Irish people do not enter the US illegally, rather, they enter legally on visas and become 'illegal' when they overstay their visas.
During his inaugural address on Monday, President Trump said he would be declaring a national emergency and the southern border and that "all illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came."
On Tuesday morning - the day the raids were reportedly set to begin - Homan told CNN that ICE was "out to enforce the law, out today" and that they would be concentrating on "public safety threats."
Homan said he wouldn't call the operations "raids," rather they're "targeted enforcement operations. "
"They [ICE] know exactly who they're looking for," he said, "they know pretty much where they'll find them."
Homan added that undocumented people with criminal records are the target, but that other undocumented people who don't have a criminal conviction will be arrested too.
"When we go find our priority target, which is a criminal alien, if he's with others in the United States illegally, we're going to take enforcement action against him," he said.
"We're going to force immigration law."
When asked what advice she was offering to those concerned about the raids, McEntee said she was thankful that a wealth of information was readily available online. Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NICJ) have resources on immigrants' rights.
McEntee was keen to point out that ICE officers must have a warrant signed by a judge, known as a judicial warrant, to enter your home. These, the NIJC points out, are different from ICE 'warrants,' which are signed by ICE officers and do not grant authority to enter a home without the consent of the occupant(s).
Meanwhile, in the draft programme for Government agreed upon by coalition leaders last week, the next Irish Government aims to "advocate with the US Administration and Capitol Hill to advance the case of undocumented Irish citizens in the US."
The exact number of undocumented Irish people in the US is unknown. In 2023, Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs told IrishCentral: "By virtue of their undocumented status, precise figures of undocumented citizens living in the US are not available."