Irish Premier Uses St. Patrick’s Day Ritual to Lecture Trump on Immigration -<br />By MARK LANDLERMARCH 16, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — On a calendar of foreign visitors that includes President Xi Jinping of China<br />and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the annual visit by the taoiseach of Ireland to mark St. Patrick’s Day should have been a delightful distraction for President Trump.<br />“Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue,” Mr. Trump said, “But never forget to remember those who have stuck by you.”<br />A version of this article appears in print on March 17, 2017, on Page A16 of the New York edition<br />with the headline: Irish Premier Uses St. Patrick’s Day Ritual to Lecture Trump on Immigration.<br />He stuck to the issue that has long preoccupied Irish officials: the estimated 50,000 Irish who are living in the United States illegally,<br />and who are at risk of being deported if Mr. Trump delivers on his campaign pledge to round up undocumented immigrants.<br />Yet on Thursday, Mr. Trump found himself in a roomful of kelly-green-clad lawmakers in the Capitol for the Friends of Ireland luncheon, being lectured by Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, or taoiseach (pronounced THEE-shakh), about the virtues of America’s immigrant legacy<br />and the contributions that immigrants had made to the country.<br />During the presidential campaign, he referred to Mr. Trump’s language as “racist and dangerous.”<br />Nigel Farage, the British populist leader who is a staunch ally of Mr. Trump, demanded in an interview on Wednesday with RTE, the Irish national broadcaster,<br />that Mr. Kenny apologize to the president for his remarks.
