Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is correct to call it his early wall-building. For many watching the earlier events and the election it was a case of bluster and bad hair. Some passed him off as a harmless charlatan. As the election campaign developed and people saw what was behind the individual and what he was saying, many became frightened. Like many other groups, Sinn Féin is completely opposed to these comments and the racist, sexist and sectarian policies that he articulated at various times during campaign. Collectively, we need to oppose them in Ireland, the USA and anywhere else where they feature throughout the world.

The uncomfortable reality for many of us is that Donald Trump won a democratic election and he is now the US President. While we respect this democratic victory, collectively, we must all oppose his extreme, unacceptable and dangerous policies. We know that there have been widespread protests in the USA to protest against the policies of the Trump Administration. These popular protests were some of the largest seen in the history of the USA. The international outcry at the actions of the Trump Administration was palpable as well.

Donald Trump's executive order brings an uncomfortable shiver and it has halted the US refugee programme. It also introduced a collective travel ban for citizens from seven Muslim countries. It was plainly wrong on every level. It involved a blanket 90-day travel ban for nationals coming from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It labelled millions of innocent people as somehow suspect, not right, criminal or potentially a terror suspect. It was to be discriminatory and selective on a truly vast and unimaginable scale.

I welcome that the ban has been suspended by the courts but, as we know, that ruling continues to be challenged. Even people with the magic green card were to be refused entry at America's airports, something that was previously unimaginable. Anti-immigrant and anti-immigration policies that were perverse, fear driven and not based on reality or any known facts were somehow to be the order of the day under the new US Administration.

We know that generations of Irish people who fled starvation, poverty, oppression and conflict to make a new life contributed in every way to building the country that calls itself the United States of America where millions of them and their descendants still live. It is their descendants, proud Irish-Americans, as well as many other immigrant groups, who are among the most outraged at President Donald Trump’s so-called executive orders which are, in fact, exclusion laws. A major concern for many Irish people is not only these anti-immigrant, racist and sectarian policies but also that they might somehow be implemented or enforced in Ireland through the pre-clearance system operating in Dublin and Shannon Airports. My party shared these legitimate apprehensions and stated our belief the Irish Government needed to make it explicitly clear that it would not in any way legitimise or implement the executive order at pre-clearance centres at Dublin and Shannon Airports. I was particularly concerned that Ireland's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and other international agreements could be, by default, undermined and that the order would violate people’s rights. I am led to believe a meeting between US and Irish officials on pre-clearance facilities at Dublin and Shannon Airports has been brought forward from 1 March to 23 February at the insistence of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. I also understand the Minister has ordered his Department to review the pre-clearance set-up. While I welcome this initiative, I am looking forward to scrutinising the findings of that important review when it is completed.

What has also heightened our concerns is that Irish visitors to the United States will now need to declare whether they have travelled to the named seven, predominantly Muslim, countries in the previous six years when applying on the ESTA, electronic system for travel authorisation. Again, this is wrong. It is welcome that the US courts have stopped this ban in its tracks. Just last week a federal appeals court, under extreme pressure from its advocates, unanimously upheld the temporary suspension of the order. It seems likely, however, that the Trump Administration will appeal the ruling to the US Supreme Court or try to rewrite or modify its flawed executive order. Many of us would prefer, if anyone listened to us in the Trump Administration, if it conceded defeat and recognised that its discriminatory policies were not legal or supported by the majority of the American people.

Again, there is growing concern that the Trump Administration is trying to somehow sidestep the democratic legal checks and balances in place primarily to keep a check on the power of the President's office. Cracks are already being exposed, with key spokespeople in his Administration receiving warnings about promoting the commercial products of the Trumps. Additionally, the US President’s new national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has had to resign after it was revealed he had misled the US Vice President, Mike Pence, and other top White House officials on his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States. The huge protests we have seen on the streets of the United States and in its airports suggest the cracks are widening and that this will be no easy task for the Trump Administration. The message is that American citizens will not lie down. I express my solidarity with all those protesting against anti-immigrant, racist or sexist policies.

Last week President Trump also began to enact another pillar of his platform, namely, the deportation of undocumented or illegal immigrants. Across seven states immigration officials launched a series of daytime raids, seizing people in their workplaces, in shopping centre car parks and from their homes. The agents insisted that it was routine and that most of those arrested had criminal records. However, migrant support organisations spoke about widespread and terrified communities that were convinced that their loved ones would be taken away. There are also widespread media reports of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents going door to door in neighbourhoods with supposedly large amounts of immigrants, asking people to present their papers. People are panicking and really scared. Poor people from Latin America, particularly Mexico, are said to be the most worried. It is the poor who are the target.

The Irish Central news organisation has also reported that in Irish immigration centres in New York there has been a marked rise in the numbers seeking advice and to adjust their status or apply for citizenship since President Trump’s inauguration. There is currently over a month-long wait to see an immigration counsellor in the Queens immigration office.

The Taoiseach has made clear that he will travel to the White House for the annual St. Patrick’s Day event. Surely in his visit he cannot ignore these developments and it cannot be business as usual. The primary focus of his trip has to be on engaging with the Irish diaspora, standing with the undocumented Irish and maintaining our strong ties with Irish America, particularly as regards the ongoing challenges and the process of peaceful change on this island. He needs to assert in the strongest possible terms the collective position of the people of total opposition to any racist, anti-women or anti-immigration policies of the Trump Administration.

Sinn Féin’s main engagement in the USA is with Irish America, the bridge between this island and people in the USA. Many Irish-Americans are as appalled as anyone else by the policies articulated by President Trump. We will engage with them and listen to their mounting concerns. However, it is important that, as part of this debate, we do not focus only on the United States. We also need to take an in-depth look at immigration policies in Ireland. In September 2015 the Government agreed to resettle and relocate 4,000 refugees in Ireland in two years. While we welcomed this commitment, we argued that it could have been more generous. From all accounts, we will fail to reach this target by September 2017, despite the Government’s claims. The world’s worst refugee crisis is evolving and our response is one of denial and prevarication.

Like many others, I have been contacted by people who are desperate to get their family members to Ireland. Some have experienced the absolute brutality of Daesh. Despite being law-abiding Irish citizens, they are refused permission to bring their desperate and vulnerable family members here to safety. There is, rightly, much talk about the undocumented Irish in the USA. What about the undocumented in Ireland? Migrant Rights Centre Ireland, MRCI, estimates that there are between 20,000 and 26,000 undocumented migrants, including children and families, living and working in Ireland. What are we doing to assist them? Research carried out by MRCI revealed that one in five undocumented migrants had lived in Ireland for more than ten years, that 89% were employed and that one in three had been in the same job for more than five years. I am, equally, appalled by how they are treated and their insecurity. We ask US politicians to create a pathway for the undocumented Irish but nothing for those living in the shadows in Ireland. Is that right? Is it fair? We should urgently implement a straightforward transparent scheme to give people the opportunity to come forward and apply to regularise their immigration status in Ireland. We need to do this to be consistent. We could then request, with some moral authority, that the same be done for the undocumented Irish in the United States.

I also use the opportunity to refer to the Dakota Access pipeline project, against which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe have led large, vibrant colourful protests. The proposed 1,200 mile pipeline will link North Dakota with Illinois across their sacred lands and it is a proposal that will threaten their water supply and cultural heritage. They have legitimate concerns about the real environmental risks the pipeline will create. It will disturb their sacred areas and ancient burial sites. There is a high risk that it will lead to the pollution of their drinking water source. The project was approved without even the most basic of consultation with the tribe which have been bravely demonstrating against the building of the pipeline, joined by other Native Americans from across North America. Anyone who has seen the videos of peaceful protesters being attacked by private security companies with dogs and pepper spray would have to be made of stone not to be moved. That is the atmosphere in which the immigration policies are being implemented.

The Obama Administration had halted some work on the pipeline but representatives of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe knew that the battle was far from won. President Trump has now overturned that decision to halt the construction. He has signed an executive order to advance the construction of the pipeline under terms and conditions to be negotiated. The order expedites the environmental review that President Trump described as "incredibly cumbersome, long, horribly permitting process". I have sent my solidarity to those protesting about this pipeline project and legally challenging its construction.

I said at the outset that people in Ireland did not know of Donald Trump. The "trump" people of my generation grew up knowing was the use of that word in the song, "Nellie the Elephant". Apparently, as the song goes:

Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk,

And said goodbye to the circus,

Off she went with a trumpety-trump,

Trump, trump, trump.

Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk,

And trundled back to the jungle,

Off she went with a trumpety-trump,

Trump, trump, trump.

Donald Trump might go back to the Wall Street jungle and go trump, trump, trump.

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