Members of the Justice for the Undocumented campaign have submitted a petition signed by 4,000 people to Tom Cooney, special adviser to Minister for Justice Alan Shatter.
The Migrant Rights Centre Ireland campaign aims to secure an earned regularisiation scheme for undocumented migrants living in Ireland. Helen Lowry, community work co-ordinator with the centre, said there were about 30,000 such people living in the State.
“This scheme would allow people to come out of the shadows,” she said. “It’s not an amnesty, it’s an earned regularisation scheme.”
Maritas Alforte from the Philippines, who has been living in Ireland for six years, is an undocumented worker. “Being undocumented here is difficult because I can’t go home to visit my kids, my family. It’s like I’m in the shadow because it’s hard to express yourself and go out because you always have fears in your head and your heart.
“ I know my situation is not good here,” Ms Alforte added, “but I would sacrifice anything for them [my kids].”