Boston’s Irish heart beats strong — even in the face of Trump’s immigration agenda

If it had happened at home, the Government would have declared a national emergency. Ireland would have ground to a halt for a fortnight. Here, it’s different. Bostonians tolerate snow like we tolerate rain. It’s business as usual.

If it hadn’t been for heavy snow in March 1776, British troops under the command of General William Howe might have overthrown George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, whose canons were pointing directly at them from Dorchester Heights, just south of the city.

A snowstorm that night had prevented Howe’s attempt to dislodge the guns and take control of the city. He later remarked: “My God, these fellows have done more work in one night that I could make my army do in three months.”

On Saint Patrick’s Day 1776, also known as Evacuation Day in Massachusetts, 11,000 redcoats and hundreds of loyalists fled the city by boat. Washington triumphantly marched into Boston the following day.

Forty years ago, I visited Boston for the first time.

Having just returned from London, life back home still had little to offer; so I withdrew what savings I had and booked a flight, having no idea what lay ahead of me.

I had decided on Boston because the sheer enormity of New York scared me, and Beantown, as it’s affectionately known, seemed friendlier and more inviting.

Within days, this place had drawn me in to the point where I felt at home, similar to where I had come from — just without all the moral restrictions and the awful scars of immaturity that a traditional church upbringing usually left a young Irish man with back then.

I had enough funds for two months, I estimated. Staying with friends in a small apartment kept my overheads to a minimum. Within a fortnight, I had two potentially interested employers. There was only one problem: I didn’t have a work visa; nor would it be possible to secure one because the job I was after could be filled by thousands of American citizens who were also available for work.

I ran out of money and boarded the plane back home. I often wonder if I had been successful and stayed on, what my life would have been like living in Boston.

This week, it feels like I am visiting a home from home.

Boston is a city that was shaped by immigration, and the Irish played no small part in that feat. Many of the unskilled Irish and half-dead refugees who arrived here between 1845 and 1850 had no idea that this would become their lifelong home.

It just happened to be one of the large ports on the east coast that their ships set sail for. Today, Boston is considered the most Irish city in the world outside of Ireland.

Irish immigrants endured a life nothing short of slavery when they started to arrive here from the 1650s onwards. By 1850, 35,000 of Boston’s 136,000 residents — 26% — were Irish, but the city had no way to absorb them. 

Many of them turned to selling alcohol, with 900 of Boston’s 1,500 liquor stores run by Irishmen by 1851. Hence the origin of traditional Irish pubs here.

Back then, local authorities tried to close their city to the Irish, causing major division between the two cultures.

Mayor Hugh O'Brien's legacy

That opposition had all but gone by January 1885, when Hugh O’Brien, the first Irish immigrant elected mayor of Boston, took the oath of office. A new era had begun.

Loved by both native and Irish-born Bostonians, O’Brien led the charge for the better-known Irish mayors who would follow in his footsteps, including John Francis ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald and James Michael Curley. Some 140 years on from O’Brien’s election, Boston is as Irish as it was back then. If everyone of Irish descent here left Boston today, a fifth of the entire population would disappear.

So what do people here in Boston — the city of generations of immigrants — think of Donald Trump, and his aggressive “mass deportations” plan?

An old maxim has it that we should never discuss politics or religion at the dinner table. Here in the US, talking politics in public is off the menu as of November 8 last.

“Unless you’re able to stand your ground, don’t ask locals what they think of Trump,” an airport worker helping us with our suitcases advised me last Monday.

But I can’t resist.

Undocumented Irish don't fear deportation

Are unlawful Irish immigrants here in Boston afraid of being arrested and deported? Before arriving last week, I suspected they might be; but talking to people here over the past few days, I have been slowly changing my mind.

According to the Irish Pastoral Centre in Dorchester, it’s estimated there are more than 10,000 undocumented Irish in Boston, about the size of the population of Dungarvan. 

What stands in their favour since Trump started making his move on the White House is a mandate called the Boston Trust Act — an updated version of which was signed and enacted in 2019 by then mayor, Martin J Walsh.

The act, originally signed into law by Walsh in 2014, makes clear the role of Boston police officers, outlining how they will not ask individuals about or for their immigration status, share any information with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), make arrests based solely on ICE administrative warrants, perform the functions of federal immigration officers, or transfer an individual to ICE custody.

Last weekend, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said, “from our perspective, what we tell anyone who comes to visit our city or lives in our city is that we don’t care about your immigration status.”

Cox went on to explain that if a criminal warrant is involved, it will of course be enforced; but that’s different to a civil detainer, which local police don’t get involved in as they are immigration-related.

However, Trump’s administration could employ an expansion of what’s known as ‘expedited removal’, by which an immigration officer can quickly deport individuals, sometimes within a day, if the government can establish that they entered the US without the correct immigration documents and were unable to prove that they lived here for more than two years.

Immigration advocates are currently challenging the expansion in court.

ICE agents must surely know that their plans to deport Boston’s illegal aliens won’t work without the support of the Boston Police Department, and clearly that’s not going to happen.

In immigration proceedings, unlike in criminal courts, immigrants bear the burden of proving to the satisfaction of the judge that they don’t pose a danger or a flight risk — or else they are locked up.

However, here in Massachusetts in December 2019, following a district court judge’s ruling to reverse the burden of proof, instead calling on ICE to establish why an immigrant ought to be detained, the law changed much to the relief of unlawful immigrants.

These days, the US government now has to prove why you should not be allowed to remain here as a non-citizen.

There’s a distinct sense of calm familiarity and welcoming smiles here this past week among the many immigrants who call this city their home.

I get the feeling most of them have little to worry about from Trump’s heavy gang. Here in Boston, it’s business as usual.