Fear spreads among America's undocumented Irish, the ‘low-hanging fruit’ in Trump’s immigration blitz

Within a week of starting his second term, Donald Trump made good on his promise to launch an immigration enforcement blitz. Drafting in multiple federal agencies and arresting nearly 1,000 people on its first weekend in power, his administration redoubled its efforts to tackle what the US president calls America’s "illegal immigrant criminal" issue. He has also spoken about his plans to end birth-right citizenship for anyone born in the US, irrespective of their parents’ immigration status.

Nobody can say for certain how many Irish people living in the US are undocumented — those without legal immigration status, or who entered the US on now-expired visas. The estimates range from 10,000 to 40,000.