"Thomas, he comes in 2019," Imad says. By then, Imad had been in direct provision for around six months, but he made an immediate connection with Thomas, his new roommate.

"He told me a little bit about his story, like [him being] homeless, and then before Ireland he was in Alaska, [he] showed me pictures there, snow," Imad recalls. Thomas had never been in Ireland before, and Imad never found out exactly why he arrived here.

"I ask him many times but he doesn't like [it]. I said to him, listen, I am Algerian, I am from north Africa, I am here as asylum seeker. You are American citizen, you can go anywhere. Thomas, he was very smart guy, at the same time he was a very good guy, but he doesn't like everybody."

Between 2011 and 2020 there were 50 applications for asylum/international protection from American citizens, according to the Department of Justice. None were granted protection status - either refugee status or subsidiary protection - and fewer than five were granted leave or permission to remain in Ireland. In the same period, 40 deportation orders were issued, 10 of which were effected. 

Those numbers, though small, easily exceed the number of applications from people of other English-speaking countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, and the figures also show the rate of asylum applications from Americans has been increasing. Between 2011 and 2016 there were fewer than five applications lodged every year, and none in 2014, but 34 were lodged in the years 2017 to 2020, with 12 applications made in both 2019 and 2020.

Fiona Hurley is Policy and Communications Manager with Nasc, an NGO based in Cork that assists migrants and refugees. She never had any contact with Thomas, but is aware of a number of Americans in the direct provision system in recent years. While all cases are different, she senses that for some US nationals, there is an element of paranoia, legitimate worry, or both, that they are somehow at risk of being surveilled or monitored by US authorities; a post-Edward Snowden miasma of danger and fear.

Fiona believes that in addition to any possible element of paranoia among some US applicants, there can be a perception that Ireland is more rural than it actually is, that it offers a kind of bucolic obscurity unlike the UK or other European countries. Despite this, and the obvious appeal of a common language, Fiona doesn't see any evidence of special treatment for Americans within direct provision, and argues that in some ways, seeking asylum is more difficult for US citizens who enter the system.

"They would possibly have their case heard faster because they would be from a country that's seen as a safe country, so it's a harder barrier to prove that they have a legitimate case," she says. 

Fiona also believes someone like Thomas was unlikely to link in with an NGO or community group, meaning the groundings for his asylum application may be written on a file in a government department, and so few people are privy to the reasons he gave. "Someone who was a former US soldier, if you are paranoid about the US, you are going to have a real fear for your data being used by anyone, anywhere," she says. "So anywhere where you would have to register for a service, he probably wouldn't have done."

The usual method for an American to enter Ireland is through a 90-day visa, followed by an application for the appropriate immigration permission to the Minister for Justice or an application for an employment permit to the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment prior to entering the State. 

And so, for whatever reason, Thomas applied for international protection, becoming one of the small but growing number of US nationals entering the asylum system in Ireland. Was Yah directing him, as per his beliefs? "Well, I'm running out of time," he says in his very last Youtube clip. "I'll see you down the road. Shalom..." 

‘He was happy, actually’

For Imad, the reasons for Thomas applying for asylum became less important than having him around as a friend. When he first arrived in Ireland, Imad spoke Arabic and some French. First Eric began assisting him in learning English, and then Thomas, to much greater effect. In fact, Imad began speaking English with an American accent. He beams at the memory.

"Thomas as well, he was very busy," Imad says. "In a restaurant in Tralee, in town [working]. In the kitchen, kitchen porter, he was working four, five days, sometimes six days, he liked the job, he liked to be busy, get some money, meet some people. He was happy, actually."

From reproaching himself in his Youtube videos for craving cigarettes, now Thomas would smoke outside with his coffee, sitting with Imad. They would occasionally smoke weed, like many of the residents. Not long before this, Thomas had been accusing his brother of similar behaviour, of falling foul of the scriptures. But some of the old fire still burned, and the incorrigible beliefs remained.

"If you see someone in the face you will know, if someone is 100% mental health - Thomas was not 100% mental health," Imad explains. "He told me before he was a Christian, after that he became a Jewish. I told him I'm Muslim, I pray every single day in my room, I never had problems. [We were] talking about the Koran and the Bible." 

It turns out Thomas didn't like Donald Trump, or any politicians, but his own conspiracies were never far away. "Always he was thinking about that. He ask me when we die, where we are going, he ask me about the paradise and the hell.

"Sometimes I, like, scared, after that I get scared." 

Imad says Thomas spoke to his daughter regularly while in Tralee, although according to Martin Elle, Thomas's longtime friend in America, it may only have been once or twice. Did Thomas tell her where he was? What he was doing? Imad isn't sure, but he could see the positive impact of that contact.

"His daughter. He always, he loved her, when he spoke to her ... when I remember him and feel that.. Sometimes two times a week [speaking to her]. Sometime [for] one hour. He give her advice."

Thomas wasn't in Atlas House that long when, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, he went missing from the centre. According to Imad, "He went to the mountain, for maybe 10 days, something like that, and then 10 days, no food, no water, nothing. When he come back it was first lockdown. Everyone in Atlas House, if someone leaves the hostel for just 24 hours, they have to go quarantine for two weeks, after that come back to the hostel."