The number of Irish citizens seeking consular assistance about deportation from the US increased from 15 in 2024 to 65 last year, the Dáil has heard.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Neale Richmond said the overall number may seem small but “it is a 330 per cent increase”.
He added that one person has sought assistance from the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2026 so far.
Those seeking assistance include both people who have been deported and those who are still going through the deportation process, “which may include being held in detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice)”.
Deportation figures hovered between five and 18 over the five years immediately before 2025. There were 18 deportation cases in 2023 and 11 in 2022. The lowest number over the last seven years was in 2021, when there were five cases. There were 13 in 2020 and 16 in 2019.
Richmond said the department did not comment on individual cases, to protect identities.
He also declined to provide details on locations “in case doing so could compromise the citizen’s right to privacy”.
The Minister told Labour foreign affairs spokesman Duncan Smith the figure only included cases where a citizen or their family had sought help. It “does not necessarily reflect all deportations to Ireland or where a citizen is currently being detained by Ice”.
Smith said Ireland’s figure for the number of cases is 66, including the one case for 2026. He said “Ice’s figure for January to September last year was 99″, which suggested dozens of Irish people have been held and not sought consular assistance.
“We should be doing more to seek out where those Irish citizens are, where they’re being held,” he said.
The Dublin Fingal East TD added “I don’t think it’s good enough in this circumstance for us to sit back and wait” for people to seek consular assistance.
He said Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee, who is currently in the US, should “at the very least” request from the secretary for homeland security “details of all Irish citizens, both documented and undocumented, in terms of their detention and where they’re being held”.
Ireland should request that “on the grounds that we have very real humanitarian concerns in relation to how our citizens are being held along with other immigrant groups from around the world”.
“This is a manifestation of the creeping fascism with the United States. We need to hold the United States to account on this,” he said.
He cited the case of Irish citizen Donna Hughes-Brown (59), who had been living legally in the US since the age of 11. She was detained over two cheques that bounced years ago and which she subsequently cleared.
When she returned from a break in Ireland “she was detained, taken out of state from Chicago to Kentucky, and held in conditions that are absolutely deplorable”.
The Minister told him “I don’t necessarily disagree with you on that point but there are very real challenges”. There were “a lot of things at play”, he said. “They may not want Irish Government assistance.”
He said the Government has nine diplomatic missions in the US and, through its missions and alliance of pastoral centres and community centres, it works to make sure people are aware “even if they aren’t seeking assistance” that “we have a full obligation to our Irish citizens” whatever difficulty they are in.
He said the Irish Government “maintains a very open, frank level of engagement with the US administration at all levels, not only in federal but also at local level, particularly at state level, and indeed city level”.