This story is a part of “Trump Two: Six Months In,” our sequence taking inventory of the administration’s efforts to reshape immigration enforcement and legal justice.
Trump administration officers intention to stress some noncitizens into self-deporting. It labored on Matthew Morrison. In mid-July, the 69-year-old former psychiatric nurse supervisor quietly fled america.
Morrison had been threatened by an aggressive authorities earlier than. When he was a young person, he fought in opposition to what he and others within the Irish Republican Military noticed as an occupying British authorities that discriminated in opposition to marginalized Catholics in Northern Eire.
For his efforts then, Morrison mentioned he was crushed by interrogators and wound up in jail, the place a few of his comrades died in a starvation strike protesting the revocation of their political standing.
Upon his launch in 1985, he feared for his security. He got here to St. Louis, married his American pen pal and had two youngsters. Finally, he overstayed his vacationer visa, divorced his pen pal and remarried. He’s had the spectre of deportation hanging over him for many years. His household has endured the highs and lows of his battle alongside the way in which.
Now, Morrison leans on a cane. He’s had a number of strokes. He mentioned that the worry and uncertainty that he is perhaps picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was greater than he might bear.
Matthew Morrison, together with his spouse Sandra Riley Swift, in 2025.
“I might chew the mud in an ICE holding cell,” Morrison advised The Marshall Undertaking – St. Louis earlier than he left the U.S. “There may be nothing to cease them from deporting me to Ecuador, South Sudan or no matter. It’s actually gotten insane right here. It’s loopy what they’re doing now, the Trump administration. what I imply?”
Many noncitizens have confronted related unknowns in hiding. Morrison has been within the public eye for a very long time. He’s been out and in of the information because the Nineteen Nineties. He was even the grand marshal of a parade. However the U.S. authorities denied his petition for an adjustment in immigration standing due to crimes he was convicted of throughout “The Troubles” battle in Northern Eire. Morrison had omitted these from his authentic vacationer visa utility.
In 2000, the Clinton administration terminated the deportation course of in opposition to Morrison and 5 different named “deportees,” because the group of former Irish Republican Military prisoners was known as, after the American spouses of the Irish males testified earlier than Congress. The president himself weighed in on the problem.
“Whereas on no account approving or condoning their previous legal acts,” Invoice Clinton mentioned then, in accordance with a Washington Publish story on the time, “I consider that eradicating the specter of deportation for these people will contribute to the peace course of in Northern Eire.”
The deportees had been momentarily relieved. However as a result of they weren’t on a path to citizenship, the six males nonetheless needed to reside with restrictions and repeatedly examine in with the federal government.
In Might, Noel Gaynor, who had a coronary heart situation, died at house in Olean, New York. Ready months with out annual work authorization approval, his Medicare and Social Safety advantages had been minimize off, in accordance with a video of statements made at his wake. In June, Gabriel Megahey obtained a letter from the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety that The Marshall Undertaking – St. Louis reviewed. It started: “It’s time so that you can go away america.”
Morrison anticipated the same letter. Although his work authorization expires in October, he didn’t wish to sit round ready and worrying.
On July 21, he limped onto a one-way flight from Cleveland to Dublin, Eire, together with his spouse, forsaking a life that he’d constructed within the St. Louis space, together with grown youngsters, grandchildren and plenty of pals.
“I’ve come full circle,” Morrison mentioned whereas nonetheless in america. “I got here right here as an immigrant and I’m leaving as an immigrant, regardless of every part in between. The entire thing is a loopy, worrying state of affairs.”
Tright here’s a metropolis in Northern Eire with two names. Protestants name it Londonderry. Catholics, like Morrison, name it Derry.
Catholics felt discriminated in opposition to there. With out higher choices, Morrison mentioned his childhood house didn’t have an indoor toilet or sizzling water. He mentioned the cramped house was raided by British troopers stationed there to maintain the peace between Protestants and Catholics and to make sure Northern Eire remained a part of the UK.
To withstand, he helped construct barricades round his neighborhood. On Jan. 30, 1972, 16-year-old Morrison and his father joined 1000’s of others within the streets of their metropolis. The march for Catholic civil rights turned often known as Bloody Sunday after British troops fatally shot 14 unarmed individuals and injured others.
To struggle again, Morrison mentioned he joined the Irish Republican Military.
“There was no technique to be detached,” he mentioned.
Three years later, whereas in school, he mentioned he was arrested with two others for attempting to gun down a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer. Once more, there have been two methods to take a look at it. To Morrison, it was an act of battle. Others noticed it as terrorism.
Later, he’d declare he was choked and crushed throughout police interrogations, which left him deaf in a single ear. Convicted of tried homicide, he was despatched to a jail outdoors Belfast that turned extensively identified for a starvation strike the place 10 individuals died.
Launched in 1985, Morrison fled to St. Louis, the place he quickly married Francie Broderick, an American pen pal who’d protested in Northern Eire. They’d a son, Matt, then a daughter, Katie. For years, the household and their supporters rallied to convey consciousness to their very own troubles with immigration authorities.
In 1998, CBS featured the Morrison household in a documentary titled “Earlier than Your Eyes: Don’t Take My Daddy.”
“I at all times felt that our marketing campaign was an extension of the starvation strike,” mentioned Broderick, now 77.
Matthew Morrison, with Francie Broderick and their youngsters, at a 24-hour vigil in downtown St. Louis in 1996.
They’d a significant breakthrough in 2000 when then-Lawyer Normal Janet Reno mentioned in a ready assertion that she had been suggested by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to drop deportation proceedings in opposition to the deportees to “assist and promote the method of reconciliation that has begun in Northern Eire.”
The boys might keep, however they nonetheless couldn’t apply for a inexperienced card, not to mention U.S. citizenship, due to their deferred immigration standing.
“Individuals don’t understand how a lot of a minefield U.S. immigration regulation is,” Morrison mentioned.
Over time, delayed work authorizations sidelined him from his job for months at a time, he mentioned. He labored about 20 years as a nurse in Missouri, together with stints at a youngsters’s hospital and several other state psychological well being services. He mentioned he offered on the St. Louis County Police Academy on subjects together with psychological well being and deescalation techniques.
“It doesn’t matter what I did, Immigration gave me no credit score for it,” Morrison mentioned.
Homeland Safety and ICE officers didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In June, earlier than Morrison self-deported, a scheduled check-in with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Providers in St. Louis put him and his household on edge. Their fears had been heightened by tales about immigrants being detained at routine appointments, no matter authorized standing. On the appointment, authorities took a photograph of Morrison and he was free to go.
“We had been terrified that they had been simply going to take him proper there,” mentioned his son, Matt, 37.
Matthew Morrison’s youngsters, Matt, 37, and Katie, 34, on July 22, 2025, the day after he self-deported.
He mentioned the uncertainty weighed on his father greater than he’d ever seen.
“He has to reside beneath that worry of any individual knocking on the door and dragging him out of the home, similar to they did in Derry when he was younger,” Matt mentioned. “I hate it. I’m simply frightened about him. Till not too long ago, I hadn’t heard him cry about it.”
He has combined emotions about his father’s departure.
“He’s acquired brothers and sisters over there, however we’re all right here — and his grandkids,” Matt mentioned. “He spends a number of time together with his grandkids.”
Morrison’s daughter, Katie Bradley, 34, mentioned a current farewell gathering, held in a yard, felt like a funeral. She panicked as a result of her U.S. passport had expired.
“Despite the fact that he’s nonetheless alive, I really feel like I’m grieving,” she mentioned. “It’s an enormous loss for me and my youngsters.”
Morrison’s spouse, Sandra Riley Swift, has a home in St. Charles, Missouri, in addition to her mom and plenty of grandchildren. After serving to Morrison transition into an residence within the city the place he grew up, she mentioned in a social media put up that she’s going to straddle each nations for some time.
“This was not a simple alternative, however a obligatory one for his well being and security,” she wrote just a few days after they left the U.S.
