Sir, – Every so often, it seems that we Irish Americans need to be reminded of how impotent we have allegedly become. This time, the messenger is Colm Quinn ("Why Irish America should not expect special treatment on immigration", Opinion & Analysis, June 2nd). It's his "realist" view that immigration reform will not happen any time soon and that the Irish Government is wasting its time advocating for the 50,000 undocumented Irish on visits to Washington.
Mr Quinn is profoundly mistaken on two levels.
First, despite being based in Washington, he clearly misapprehends the current political climate there. While his disdainful characterisation of a hyper-partisan Congress is accurate, he neglects to mention the reality that the Republican Party is divided on immigration. Its leadership recognises that the party is headed for electoral oblivion unless it quickly alters the perception that it is anti-immigrant.
Irish and Irish American political leaders can play a unique role in getting the US hard right to see that the “illegal immigrants” they sadly rail against are not just Mexicans. The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, working in concert with other immigrant groups, has spent the past several years making this case. Their efforts were crucial to winning over one prominent Irish-American Republican congressman, Paul Ryan, to the pro-reform side.
Second, at a moral level, it is incumbent upon Ireland’s political leaders to use their unparalleled access to the White House and Capitol Hill to advocate for the undocumented Irish living and working in the shadows of the US. These men and women may live there, but their families and friends are here, and worry constantly about their precarious situations.
The Irish undocumented did not cease to be Irish when they left and deserve the ongoing assistance of the country of their birth.
Mr Quinn is right that the Government should push for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, but he is wrong to assume that immigration reform cannot happen and to assert that the Irish Government should not do its utmost at every opportunity for the undocumented. And as countless Irish Americans would surely remind him, we’re far from a spent force. – Yours, etc,
LARRY DONNELLY,
School of Law,
NUI Galway.