Irish, undocumented, and unsure of their future in Trump's America
CBSN
They run businesses. They tend bars. They pay taxes. While they are in the U.S. illegally, they are largely spared the scrutiny of that label. But still they live in fear. They are the thousands of undocumented Irish immigrants in America today.
Recent estimates from the Irish government suggest that there are as many as 10,000 undocumented Irish immigrants across the United States. Many have lived in the shadows for decades, waiting for a pathway to citizenship that may never come. And with a new president that has vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, anxieties have been heightened.
"It's definitely a concern, definitely a worry," Mary, an undocumented Irish immigrant in New England, told CBS News. "I've heard of different people, you know, getting caught up in a swoop of undocumented people — some of them may be criminals, but some of them may not be, and it's just a situation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
