President Trump’s newly appointed acting secretary of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan, has granted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s request not to deport an Irishman convicted of terrorist offenses.
A leaked email Friday evening from a top Department of Homeland Security official states McAleenan decided Friday to overrule Immigration and Customs Enforcement and grant a six-month stay that will allow Malachy McAllister to avoid being removed from the U.S. on April 30.
McAleenan’s predecessor, Kirstjen Nielsen, had denied McAllister’s request.
McAllister had served as a member of the Irish National Liberation Army and was involved in malicious wounding and conspiracy to murder police officers in the 1980s.
McAleenan’s move comes weeks after President Trump tapped him to temporarily serve in the top Homeland Security post. Several sources outside Homeland Security have told the Washington Examiner Trump is testing him before officially nominating him to see if he would be a good permanent fit and implement his agenda.
Schumer, who represents McAllister’s home state of New York, called McAleenan on Thursday and urged him to overrule an ICE decision not to grant the Irishman political asylum.
“Mr. McAllister is a valued member of the Irish American community who has done nothing but productive things since seeking asylum here following an assassination attempt on him and his family during the Troubles. It achieves no positive benefit for America to deport him,” Schumer said in a statement.
McAllister joined a nationalist paramilitary group, the Irish National Liberation Army, in 1981. He served as a lookout during an attack on a police officer and was part of a group that is suspected of plotting to kill another officer.
He was convicted of unlawful and malicious wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and conspiring to murder, and he subsequently served three years in prison.
McAllister claimed to have abandoned the group prior to going to prison. He and his family moved to Canada and claimed asylum. The request was denied, and they traveled to America as tourists in 1996, then claimed asylum once in the United States.
A U.S. immigration judge denied his claim in 2000 and a subsequent appeal was unsuccessful. However, Trump’s sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, broke with the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and sided with McAllister.
“We cannot be the country we should be if, because of the tragic events of September 11th, we knee-jerk remove decent men and women merely because they may have erred at one point in their lives. We should look a little closer; we should care a little more. I would ask — no, I would implore — the Attorney General to exercise his discretion and permit this deserving family to stay,” Barry wrote.
Members of Congress, including Schumer, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.; and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., responded with eight bills to allow McAllister, his wife, and their children to remain in the U.S. and apply for green cards. The House and Senate’s consideration of those bills allowed the family to avoid deportation, though ultimately none of the bills was passed.
McAllister was able to evade deportation, including a stay from Obama-era Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson..
In May 2017, then-acting ICE Director Tom Homan told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that bills to protect people from deportation would no longer suspend removal proceedings. The move put McAllister’s future back on the line.
Last month, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican, requested a six-month stay for him. ICE denied that request April 15.
McAllister owns a bar in Manhattan. Two of his four children are recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows those illegally in the U.S. to avoid deportation and work. A third child married a U.S. citizen and another was deported to Ireland.
