Ezra Levant visits Newtown Mount Kennedy, Ireland, where a former convent-turned-migrant facility is now fortified with a 10-foot fence and tents housing up to eight men each—many Middle Eastern or UK-based, arriving via France without documentation. Police surveil protesters, arresting residents like a woman holding a child during an April 25th clash involving rocks and pepper spray, while media expose locals’ identities but obscure migrant crimes, such as Riyadh Bouchakar’s alleged stabbing link to Dublin riots. Residents demand transparency on vetting and integration, citing ignored FOI requests and EU policies overriding Irish sovereignty (75% of legislation), yet face backlash as "racist" while unvetted migrants roam freely near schools and beaches. The fence symbolizes exclusion, turning a community into a metaphorical internment camp amid fears of lost security and cultural shifts. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight from Ireland under the watchful gaze of the police, I'll give you a report on one of their migrant camps.
It's July 19th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious boobug!
I'm standing in Newtown, Mount Kennedy.
It's a bit of a drive outside Dublin, but not far.
And behind these corrugated metal fences is a migrant facility.
These are pretty serious fences.
I don't know, it's almost 10 feet tall.
There's no way through it.
There's no way around it.
But those fences are not designed to protect the people of Newtown Mount Kennedy.
They're designed to protect the people inside from public scrutiny.
Let me tell you what I mean.
There's a border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is a country in the United Kingdom.
Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, England, Wales, Scotland, you can travel back and forth freely.
So what happens is migrants from places like Somalia, Algeria, Palestine, whatever, they make their way to France.
And then they get on a dinghy and they cross the English Channel into the United Kingdom.
And the policy of the government, not just the Labour government today, but for the last 14 years of the Conservative government, has been to accept hundreds of thousands of these fake refugees.
I call them fake because if you're already in France, you're no danger.
You're in no danger.
But the UK at least was talking about deporting some.
And the UK is a pretty luxurious place to be as a refugee, but it's got nothing on Ireland where they'll put you in luxury accommodations.
So people go from the Third World to the UK.
And then from the UK, they go to Northern Ireland, and then they simply walk across the border into Ireland and say, we're refugees.
As absurd as that sounds, given that Northern Ireland is a completely safe place.
Well, they come here and they get free social services, free housing, free health care, free education, a lot of free things that ordinary Indigenous Irish do not get.
But here in Newtown Mount Kennedy, there's been some resistance to that, especially given that the people inside this facility are not what are typically recognizable as refugees, women and children and old people.
They're young military-aged men, typically from countries that you would have to do a lot of hopping, skipping, and jumping to get to here in Ireland.
And so they don't have a wall like this between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
They don't have a wall on their border, but they have a wall here.
But it's not to protect the Irish from these young men.
It's to stop prying eyes to see what's going on.
And I mentioned earlier that surveillance camera, one of many, when we simply showed up here with a group of local citizens to talk about this, immediately police were dispatched.
Now, I tried to knock on the door.
It's not much of a door to talk to people.
Their first response was to throw a rock at Lincoln Jay, our videographer.
How shocking is that?
Well, nothing shocks the folks here.
The police, or the Guard Eye, as they're called, they would never arrest the folks inside, but they have arrested several of the people out here or pepper sprayed them for asking tricky questions.
This fence is a questions fence.
It's a journalism fence to stop people in the city from knowing or asking or learning about the immigration scammers inside.
I say scammers because I say again, if you are a young military age man from Somalia or from Palestine or wherever they claim to be from, you're not a refugee because you came from somewhere safe.
You're just here for the free stuff.
It's an incredible statement of who the boss in Ireland is.
It's not the Irish.
It's foreign migrants who lie their way into Ireland and the Irish government that's at war with its own people.
For the course of the next half hour, you'll see my conversations with the people in Newtown Mount Kennedy.
And when four of the migrants started walking down this road, I tried to have a chat with them.
Like I say, they're allowed in and out.
It's not a prison for them.
They're not kept in.
It's to keep the Irish out.
Take a look.
This is where we had our second camp.
We had a camp here originally before all this came.
And then we set up a second camp in here because we were told we weren't allowed to have one out here.
So we went in behind this kind of gate and the police came with their diggers and they tore up everything from us.
our right to protest again being denied and they the camera is rotating The camera is spinning around, literally as we're here talking.
They're filming us.
And we have no access that we can't see who's filming that, who's watching us, who has accessed that, where that footage is going.
You're terrified for your kids to walk on this.
But you're sure that is a government, the government put that up?
Like, who put that up?
Did the police?
The IPAS.
The people who are running this.
It's turning around now.
Here's the guard.
So they've rang the guards to tell them that we're here.
And by guards, you mean the guard eye, the official police?
Well, maybe they'll have a word.
I mean, I'm a very curious person.
I like to talk.
Tell me a little bit about Newtown Mount Kennedy.
It's basically a town not far from Dublin.
Small population, about 2,800 people.
And, you know, until this happened, of course, peaceful.
There's only a few shops in it, a few pubs in it.
There's not enough facilities even for the people that are here.
People that are moving in here, of which they're all races and all creeds and colours.
We've no problem with that.
What we do have a problem with is this, as you can see.
Now, I can't see because there's a big corrugated metal fence all around.
They've erected here.
It's like something you'd see in 1970s Belfast when you've seen the soldier forts, as we called them then.
That's what they were.
This is exactly what they look like.
What's behind this corrugated metal?
Before this was all erected, it was a big convent house and it used to be a nuns were in there and school, yeah.
And the walls would have only been about four feet high, and you could see into the grounds quite clearly.
Am I hearing voices over there?
Is there activity behind that?
There are a hundred and so men.
We don't know.
Nobody has ever told us.
It's indeterminate.
So why is there a wall around here?
They say it's to protect them from us scary people.
You're not very scary to me.
No, the working class people of Newtown are very scary people, apparently.
And so anyway, Newtown, this road here, as you see, there's no lightning on it, no footpath, no nothing else.
But still, it was a great facility for people who would be out cycling, running, walking, that kind of thing.
And now nobody does that anymore because we feel unsafe with unknown men in there.
No matter where they're from.
So it's not just being constructed now.
It's done and there's people there.
Dusted.
Behind there, there's large marquee style tents.
Tents?
Tents.
Apparently, there's eight in each tent, but we don't know.
We're told nothing.
This is what's so unusual to me.
I was in Kooloc in Dublin, and then we went to Dundrum for the south.
And now we're here in Newtown Mount Kennedy.
And the same thing I've heard in every place is lack of information, let alone consultation and input and variation.
No engagement at all.
It's a secret.
Yes, it's a secret.
It is.
Have you tried using something like an access to information request?
Like a, I don't know what that's called.
What ground?
They just say we don't need to know.
It's none of our business.
We shouldn't want to know who's moving into our areas.
Isn't there some sort of legislation that allows you to access some government records like that?
Well, they don't come.
If you try to get access to any information, you're shut down very quickly in this country.
You're put down as if it's anything to do with IPAS or anything like that.
You're shut down right away.
You're a racist.
You must be a racist because you're looking for information.
How about now, is your prime minister the local TD, the local member of parliament?
The t-shirt is Simon Harris.
He lives about six, seven kilometers away from here, but it might as well be on the moon because he never has come into Newtown.
He's never consulted with the people of Newtown.
He's never asked them how they feel.
There is no IPAS center though, living or center anywhere near where he lives or his people.
So is this the gate here?
Does this open?
No, this one, the actual gate that they go in is just further down there, about 100 meters.
And that's their main access.
So who is in there?
Is it families?
Is it men?
It's all single men.
It's all single men.
All single men.
So are these people, you use the initials IPA?
That's like an asylum seeker?
It's international protection applicants.
Where are they from?
Do you know what countries they're from?
No.
Do you ever see them?
They don't interact with us.
So we have no communication with them.
We don't know what's going on.
We're just imagining, and they seem to be of Middle Eastern origin, most of them, but we're surmising because we have no idea.
They don't give us information who's in there.
Do people come and go?
They do.
They walk up in groups all the time towards the village.
We have the Newtown GAA there just about 300 meters up the road.
What does GAA mean?
GAA is the Gaelic, the Gaelic Association, and they have children playing up around the pitches there all the time.
They're going to be running a summer camp for six-year-olds upwards.
So Irish children, not there's no, are there kids in here?
No.
So you're telling me this is just single men?
All single men.
When I think of refugees in my mind, I think of women and children.
I think of old people.
I think of, but I don't think of single military age men.
Oh, no, no.
And we have, as a country, taken in the most per capita in Europe of refugees from the likes of Ukraine.
Women, children, and they don't live in anything like this because guess what?
We don't feel unsafe with those people.
Those people are actually benefiting the community.
They're working away and we've no problem with those.
I heard that at Dundrum as well.
There have been Ukrainian families there.
And from what I heard from the locals, that they were somewhat integrated.
And I think they were not, people didn't feel threatened by them.
Exactly, because they make the effort to integrate with us, to work among us, and speak with us.
And they're very pleasant people.
And, you know, mostly they also know English, which is very handy, you know.
So we have no problem with them.
They're coming from a genuine situation where their country is at war.
We don't think these men are.
Even our own ministers have admitted that 85% coming into the country at the moment are all economic migrants.
Of course they are.
They call them refugees, but they're not refugees.
Now, are these the folks who just walk across the border from Northern Ireland?
Yes, well, I mean, I haven't been to Northern Ireland, but I've been to the United Kingdom and I've been to France, where and a lot of migrants go to France, then go to the UK, often in a dinghy, and then they'll come down across that border.
My understanding of the rules of refugee is that you apply to apply for asylum.
Exactly.
UK and France are not dangerous places.
We are not implementing any of them laws.
It seems our government is not taking any opportunities to refuse people that have no passports, no identifications, nothing.
So they come in and they get a new identity card and they can be who they want to be, but they have no way of checking.
I'm just trying to understand the wall because sometimes walls are to keep people out.
Sometimes walls are to keep people in.
Here it's sort of funny because the people who normally are kept out by a border wall, they're in already, and now they're keeping out the citizens.
I think maybe they should deploy this wall at the Irish border with Northern Ireland.
Donald Trump.
Well, it's my experience that you will always have a wall.
You will always have a lock, whether it's around your country or around a gated community or around some straight.
Like, I think this is as much to keep citizens out and non-citizens.
Like, I don't understand the wall.
It's very strange.
They're unvetted, undocumented.
They're unvetted and undocumented.
Now, how can that be?
Because they flush their passports down the toilet.
Is that not an offense under Irish law?
It is, yeah, yeah.
But just basically because the EU, we're a vassal state of the EU.
But if you know that they came from the UK by just walking across the border from Northern Ireland, why don't you just deport them to the United Kingdom?
The United Kingdom seemed friendly enough.
That would upset the EU.
Oh, is that why?
So you're under some European Union migration policy?
Is that why?
It's still determined everything.
So they tell the Irish government what to do.
So we're a vast 75% of all our legislation comes from the EU.
So that's why.
Because I haven't.
Our freedom was lost for nothing.
It's all gone.
See, they sold us out.
Well, I mean, Hungary is part of the European Union.
Victor Oberton does his own thing.
Yeah, he's not feeling very popular.
was this the official this is a game yeah yeah well I mean it doesn't look very inviting So this is the door?
Like I just, I would just, just knock.
Do you speak English?
It's quite a manly knock I have, if I may say so.
Do they answer?
No.
They're looking out there.
From where?
Where are they looking?
This is the front door.
It's not even labeled.
Like, there's not an address.
There's not a what is this?
How long has this been up here?
How long has this been this way?
May?
June?
So it's only a couple months.
Hello?
Hello?
Open up!
Who's there?
It's Angel Levant from Canada.
I might seek asylum also.
Hello.
Wearing Masks, Borrowing Sugar00:05:38
Can I borrow a cup of sugar?
They're wearing they're wearing balaclavas.
They're wearing masks over their faces.
Wow.
And they're not even Irish.
Now, who would those people be wearing their balaclavas?
They're probably out of the grand chapel.
They're probably Martin's.
Hello?
Are you throwing things at us?
That's not very neighborly.
That's not very nice of you.
They threw a rock at our camera.
That's not very friendly.
They eat, they weed in our church in the front door.
In the front door of the church.
When did that happen?
And when we asked the guards about it, the guards said, well, why doesn't anyone report it?
What are we supposed to do?
I said, I'm telling you now.
He said, we've no evidence.
So they won't look first.
They won't find it.
They won't do anything.
They are allowed to do what they want.
They drink all over the town.
They leave rubbish around the place.
They peed up in someone's front doorway, kind of like a little gateway going up to it.
We confronted him.
We said, that's disgusting.
What are you doing?
Go home and go to the toilet.
I need to piss.
Where was he from?
What did he look like?
He sounded like he was very much from London.
He had very perfect English.
Now, he was kind of Eastern European look about him, but he definitely had a London accent.
And we've heard them in there with their London accents.
Fam, blood, this kind of stuff.
That's really weird.
No, it's not because what has happened is that the word has gone out that they're getting everything given to them here.
Housing, food, benefits, and everything.
And they're getting more here than they would in the UK.
So naturally, they're saying to themselves and their buddies, let's go to Ireland.
We'll have a good life there.
We'll be given everything and not have to work or anything like that.
So, hey, Presto, here they are.
And they're with their London and Manchester accents, pretending they're Palestinian or something like that.
And they're fleeing more.
Well, we all know they're fleeing nothing but economics.
Yeah, they're fleeing their Rwanda practice band.
Hi, guys.
I'm Ezra Levant from Rebel News.
I'm doing a story on the facility there.
And who's in there?
English sounds pretty good.
Where are you from?
Sorry.
Where are you guys from?
Are you refugees?
No.
Where are you guys from?
Is it all single men who live in there?
What's your name?
Where are you from?
How come you guys don't want to talk about anything?
What's it like in there?
Is the food good?
Is there stuff to do?
Who takes care of you in there?
How long have you been here?
Where did you come from?
Did you come from the United Kingdom first?
How can you be a refugee if you actually came from the United Kingdom before you came here?
Aren't refugees usually women and children?
Did you guys destroy your documents before you came over?
I hear that happens a lot.
The people get on a plane, but then they shred their documents.
Did you guys do that?
Why did you come from the UK to Ireland?
Isn't the UK a pretty safe place?
Is it that you guys just think the Irish are suckers and they got a soft touch?
And they'll be more generous than, say, the Brits or the French.
Can I interview you a bit?
Why are you hiding your face?
Why are you hiding your face?
That's not very hospitable.
But I like the idea of a man who has a gate and a fence.
I think the Irish should take inspiration from this guy with a gate and a fence.
I think an Irish government should have a fence just like this.
And I think the Irish government should hire a security guard just like that.
And if anyone wants to illegally come in the country, they should slam the door in their face just like that.
Where did you come from?
Are you from inside here?
No.
Do you live around here in Newtown Mount Kennedy?
No, I'm Scurit.
Oh, you're security?
No.
Are you from Ireland yourself?
Are you Irish?
Are you Irish?
No, Italian.
You're Italian?
Oh, whereabouts?
Roma?
Verenze, that's one of the most beautiful cities in Italy.
Are you a citizen of Ireland, or are you a citizen of...
Who are these guys?
Why are they so rude?
Don't slam the door.
You're being rude.
There, that's a nice gentle close.
That's less rude this time.
We'll get them practiced.
We'll teach them some Irish manners.
So what happened here on April 25th?
So, in the early hours of the morning, I think it was about half two, three o'clock in the morning, there was a small camp set up here, literally right where we're standing.
Protecting Our Place00:06:47
The local residents had a protest camp set up, and Gardy came in with the public order in tow at half two, three o'clock in the morning and just plowed through.
There was a chain on the gates, they cut through that and they forced in masked workers.
Now, at the moment, there's a big colour blue about protesters wearing masks and such.
And essentially, they're covering up for guys that are going on site and carrying out illegal works on sites that have no regulation passed on them whatsoever.
And they're wearing masks.
But as the day progressed, tensions essentially escalated.
And as you chat there to one of the women, her daughter was arrested.
She was at the front line in that famous footage from April 25th.
She's the woman that was saying, bring the women to the front because she thought that the Gardy wouldn't storm them.
But moments later, they did with battens, the shields, and the pepper spray.
So, what's basically happened after that?
Then, their names and faces have been smeared all over the media.
But anytime it seems to be, you know, a migrant who's guilty of a crime, you know, their details are withheld.
There's not really much said about them at all.
Perfect example is the stabbing incident, you know, that happened in November last and led to the riots in Dublin.
And Riyadh Bouchakar, that's about the only information that we have that he's Algerian.
His image is nowhere to be found across social media.
But meanwhile, you've got four people that are trying to stand up for their community and protect their history, heritage, and culture.
You know, they get demonized.
Their addresses right down to the house number are put all over across Aaron Nations media.
And you were there yourself on the 25th?
I was.
I was right there at the front line.
It's very scary to be honest.
And I look at the footage now that happen that's happening in, you know, in other communities like Kulak that you're at earlier on today and seeing what happened there this week.
It is genuinely traumatizing.
You get flashbacks.
I've likened it to having a form of PTSD.
It genuinely is.
It's terrifying to see essentially military style action charging towards you and hearing the screens.
My partner across the way over here, you know, there's a kids' GAA pitch.
She was assisting those there at the pitch that were pepper sprayed.
Like there were kids as young as I think 14, 15, and they were absolutely brutalized.
You know, their faces all bashed up.
You know, pepper spray swelled up.
And my partner's over there trying to give them, you know, bottled milk and water, trying to help them.
It was genuinely, I like it.
It sounds a bit extreme, but it sounds, you know, it was when you're there in the moment, it was like something out of Vietnam or something because all you're hearing is screams all around you.
People are terrified.
And you have the Guardians just storming up this little laneway, narrow little laneway, screaming at people, you know, to get out, get out of the way.
And you've got rocks coming from the other side and being hurled back over.
It was absolutely terrifying.
Where this country is going, I just honestly, I don't know anymore.
It's actually, it really is scary.
Thanks for coming over.
I really appreciate it.
We have obviously nobody to speak on our behalf, except for we've won local media.
But I want to know what the plan is.
Bringing all these men into Ireland, young single men, putting them in a tent.
What is the plan?
What's this integration they're talking about?
What does it mean?
How are they going to integrate?
How are they going to integrate into our society?
The only jobs I've seen them doing is security.
I was in a main bus station in Dublin, and who's doing security in the bus station?
The immigrants.
They're guarding their own place.
You know, like, they're stopping Irish people going into, they're protecting themselves.
You know, anyway, it's just...
And this fence is not protecting you, it's protecting them.
Oh, it's protecting them.
No, it's actually, we're actually the ones behind the fence, really.
Because we don't have a say.
We have nobody protecting us.
We have, you know, the government, our local TDs, our local representatives, the Gardee and who else?
Even the people in the town.
You know, there's a split in the people.
It's a lovely small community, and people get on really well on the whole.
But now there's a divide that was never there before.
And then we're being called racist.
And there was a senator in the government.
She called us thugs.
And then I was looking at a picture.
I was looking at a video yesterday of Kulak.
And I saw there was one young guy under about 10 Gardee.
And you should have seen the looks on their faces.
You know, who are the thugs?
I saw the Prime Minister use that language as well.
That's right.
Yes.
Absolutely.
And he only lives five miles away from here.
You know that?
The Taoiseach.
And he's absolutely no empathy.
Not only that has he got no empathy, but he actually condemns us.
Well, we understand why.
That's the part I don't get.
I've heard because of money.
I've heard because of the EU.
But surely, surely there's a plan.
There is a plan, but none of us know what it is.
There's no sign up there.
There's nobody.
We've tried to, like, when we've had worries about local, the guys coming out, walking around the town, hanging around close to playgrounds, children, they had to put extra fencing up around a kindergarten school because they're worried about men passing by looking in at the children.
You know, the changes that have taken place.
I saw a woman walking up the road here, and then I saw one of the immigrants running behind her.
Now, he was probably jogging, probably nothing to do with her, but I didn't know whether to stop to the woman and say, Do you know that there's a strange man running behind you?
You know, it could be fine, but it's what it does to us, you know, like the effect it has on us.
Women don't feel safe now.
I walked down on the beach.
I was down on the beach the other day, and there were two immigrants, one behind the other.
And I was saying to myself, they're probably fine, but I didn't know whether they were or they weren't.
You know, it could be an Irish man either, but I've been walking there for 30 years.
I've never had a problem.
I've never felt afraid.
Now I'm afraid.
Ireland was a safe country.
Nobody ever had closed their gates.
Doors, front doors of houses were left open.
Cars, nobody locked their cars.
Children were left in their prams outside some houses because they were safe.
Now?
Like, we're losing our safety.
We're losing our identity.
We're losing our Irishness, our individuality.
It's not just Ireland.
I know it's happening in the UK and lots of Western Europe countries where we're seen as irrelevant.
And I can see we're going down the road like the American Indians becoming an ethnic minority in their own country.
Well, what do you think of that?
I say again that this is not an internment camp.
It is not a prison or a detention facility whatsoever.
It's a fence designed to keep the people of Ireland out, out in the cold, out of the know, out of the loop, and certainly out of power.
From Newtown Mount Kennedy, not far from Dublin, Ireland.