Boston mayor Marty Walsh has vowed to defend the rights of the undocumented Irish and other illegal migrants should US president-elect Donald Trump seek to deport them after he takes power.
The son of Connemara immigrants, Mr Walsh said there was “so much uncertainty” around whether Mr Trump would follow through on his campaign promise to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, including thousands of Irish.
The Democratic mayor is adopting a “wait and see approach” on the Trump administration’s immigration policies but, in the meantime, has defiantly pledged to maintain Boston’s protections for the undocumented – regardless of the Republican president-elect’s plans.
"We defend and are going to defend people in the city – our friends, our neighbours, family members – from any efforts to exclude them from their rights here in the city of Boston," Mr Walsh told The Irish Times.
“Boston is a city of inclusion, welcoming diversity. We are a global city and we are going to stay that way. We are not going to stop being that city that respects immigrants, both documented and undocumented.”
The 49-year-old Democrat wasted no time after Mr Trump’s surprise victory on November 8th in reassuring the city’s illegal immigrants that they would be safe in Boston.
The day after the election the politician said publicly that he was “not letting anybody change the policies in the city of Boston”.
Growing anxiety
He repeated that pledge when he spoke to The Irish Times amid growing anxiety among the undocumented Irish and those working for them about the US president-elect's plans.
"We are a country founded by immigrants. That's the root of our country. Villainizing immigrants is not the way to go," said the son of parents from Callowfeenish in Carna and Rosmuc in Co Galway.
“It is unfortunate that that is happening in parts of America today and I think that we need to stay true to our roots and where we are from.
“I am a very proud to be the son of two immigrants who came to this country in the 1950s, who settled here and had their family here.”
He recalled the fears and tears of some American-born children of foreign-born immigrants the morning after the election and how they might be affected under a Trump administration.
“Being a kid in our school system crying the day after the presidential election – I don’t think anybody who leads this country should be putting that type of fear into its own citizens,” he said.
Mr Trump has pledged to withdraw federal money from so-called “sanctuary cities” where immigrants are not asked about their legal status if stopped by police.
Boston does not call itself a sanctuary city but the city has its 2014 Trust Act which protects immigrants from police questioning their status.
Messages of comfort
Mr Walsh, like his counterparts in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, has delivered messages of comfort to Boston's immigrant community.
The mayor believes it would be “physically impossible” to deport all the country’s illegal immigrants and that it is the US Congress, not the president, that allocates federal funding to American cities.
In his first video address as president-elect earlier this month, Mr Trump said that one priority in his first 100 days in office would be to “direct the Department of Labour to investigate all abuses of visa programmes that undercut the American worker.”
This could cover documented Irish immigrants on H1B and other working US visas.
Ignoring Mr Trump's campaign threats, Mr Walsh – who was an enthusiastic campaigner for Mr Trump's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton – said the city's Office for Immigrant Advancement would continue to provide immigrants with citizenship classes and free legal advice on securing residency.
Irish immigrant activists are trying to figure out what a Trump presidency might mean.
Mr Walsh met Minister of State for the Diaspora Joe McHugh in Boston the week after the election to discuss this.
“There is a lot of uncertainty right now and also a lot of confusion on what rights the federal government has to enforce some of these laws.
“It is going to be years before anything can be figured out. You can make a tough statement but that doesn’t actually mean that you can change the system,” he said.
