Ethel Brooks

Marie O’Halloran, in The Irish Times, reports:

A US professor visiting Ireland has expressed her shock at an alleged anti-Romany outburst by an immigration officer at Dublin Airport when she told him she was attending the Roma Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration.

Prof Ethel Brooks, associate professor of women’s and gender studies and sociology at Rutgers State University in New Jersey, arrived in Dublin on Tuesday.

Of Romany extraction, she said she did not make a complaint at the time because she was terrified she might not be allowed into the country.

…The Romany activist said that when she explained the reason for her visit “the border guard said, ‘right, those people who steal and beg’. I told him, ‘I’m part of that community’.

And he said, ‘well you’ve never been to Milan where you stand at an ATM and they’ll just force you to give them all your money – and you see it constantly in Dublin you have to watch your purse as well’.”

US professor alleges racist outburst by immigration officer (The Irish Times)