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 prison justice.
Trump administration officers intention to strain 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 youngster, he fought towards what he and others within the Irish Republican Military noticed as an occupying British authorities that discriminated towards marginalized Catholics in Northern Eire.
For his efforts then, Morrison stated he was overwhelmed 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 kids. Ultimately, 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 stated that the concern and uncertainty that he is likely to be 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’d chew the mud in an ICE holding cell,” Morrison advised The Marshall Undertaking – St. Louis earlier than he left the U.S. “There’s 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. You already know what I imply?”
Many noncitizens have confronted comparable 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 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 towards 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 under no circumstances approving or condoning their previous prison acts,” Invoice Clinton stated then, in keeping with a Washington Submit 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 have 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 often test in with the federal government.
In Could, 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 have been reduce off, in keeping with a video of statements made at his wake. In June, Gabriel Megahey acquired 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, abandoning a life that he’d constructed within the St. Louis space, together with grown kids, grandchildren and plenty of mates.
“I’ve come full circle,” Morrison stated whereas nonetheless in america. “I got here right here as an immigrant and I’m leaving as an immigrant, regardless of every thing in between. The entire thing is a loopy, traumatic scenario.”
Tright here’s a metropolis in Northern Eire with two names. Protestants name it Londonderry. Catholics, like Morrison, name it Derry.
Catholics felt discriminated towards there. With out higher choices, Morrison stated his childhood house didn’t have an indoor lavatory or sizzling water. He stated 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 called Bloody Sunday after British troops fatally shot 14 unarmed folks and injured others.
To struggle again, Morrison stated he joined the Irish Republican Military.
“There was no strategy to be detached,” he stated.
Three years later, whereas in faculty, he stated he was arrested with two others for making an attempt to gun down a Royal Ulster Constabulary officer. Once more, there have been two methods to have a look at it. To Morrison, it was an act of warfare. Others noticed it as terrorism.
Later, he’d declare he was choked and overwhelmed throughout police interrogations, which left him deaf in a single ear. Convicted of tried homicide, he was despatched to a jail exterior Belfast that turned extensively recognized for a starvation strike the place 10 folks 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 carry 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 all the time felt that our marketing campaign was an extension of the starvation strike,” stated Broderick, now 77.
Matthew Morrison, with Francie Broderick and their kids, at a 24-hour vigil in downtown St. Louis in 1996.
They’d a significant breakthrough in 2000 when then-Legal professional Common Janet Reno stated in a ready assertion that she had been suggested by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to drop deportation proceedings towards 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.
“Folks don’t understand how a lot of a minefield U.S. immigration regulation is,” Morrison stated.
Over time, delayed work authorizations sidelined him from his job for months at a time, he stated. He labored about 20 years as a nurse in Missouri, together with stints at a kids’s hospital and a number of other state psychological well being amenities. He stated he introduced on the St. Louis County Police Academy on subjects together with psychological well being and deescalation ways.
“It doesn’t matter what I did, Immigration gave me no credit score for it,” Morrison stated.
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 have 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 have been terrified that they have been simply going to take him proper there,” stated his son, Matt, 37.
Matthew Morrison’s kids, Matt, 37, and Katie, 34, on July 22, 2025, the day after he self-deported.
He stated the uncertainty weighed on his father greater than he’d ever seen.
“He has to reside underneath that concern of any person knocking on the door and dragging him out of the home, identical to they did in Derry when he was younger,” Matt stated. “I hate it. I’m simply anxious about him. Till not too long ago, I hadn’t heard him cry about it.”
He has blended emotions about his father’s departure.
“He’s bought brothers and sisters over there, however we’re all right here — and his grandkids,” Matt stated. “He spends lots of time together with his grandkids.”
Morrison’s daughter, Katie Bradley, 34, stated 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 stated. “It’s an enormous loss for me and my kids.”
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 condominium within the city the place he grew up, she stated in a social media put up that she’s going to straddle each nations for some time.
“This was not a straightforward selection, however a crucial one for his well being and security,” she wrote a couple of days after they left the U.S.
