A comprehensive and long-term visa deal is required to resolve the ordeal of thousands of Irish illegals who are living in constant fear in the US, writes Niall O'Dowd.
There are an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Irish illegals in the United States at present and their plight is fast becoming desperate. Time is running out for them.In the aftermath of 9/11 a raft of draconian legislation has left many unable to secure driver's licences, travel to or from Ireland or create any kind of normal living conditions for themselves or their families.
It is time for a huge effort to not only legalise their status but to ensure that the Irish as a nation never have to deal with this issue of illegality in the US again.
Put simply, it will not be enough to apply a band-aid solution, such as the Morrison and Donnelly visas were, until the next generation of undocumented come along.
Emigration from Ireland to America is a given for every generation. Celtic Tiger or not, the historic and economic ties that bind the two countries will always ensure that a flow of immigrants will make their way to the new world.
Given the recent report in this newspaper that an incredible 500,000 Irish visited the US last year, or one in eight of the population, the Boston versus Berlin argument has been decisively settled.
Thus, now is the time, as America is considering rewriting its immigration laws, for the first time in a decade for the Irish to plead their special case.
There is nothing unfair about that. Recently countries such as Australia and Chile have received special visa deals that will ensure that emigration from those countries will be legal for the foreseeable future. Ireland too must now seek such a solution.
The need is clear. In the Bronx two weeks ago, well over 1,000 undocumented attended a meeting at a local banqueting hall, overwhelming the organisers of the newly formed Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) who had expected a few hundred at best.
It was a similar scene in Philadelphia, and large numbers are expected in Boston, San Francisco, Queens and at a national lobbying day in Washington, DC on March 8th. Across the United States the Irish undocumented are rallying as they did in the 1980s to try and change their status.
But there is an important distinction between those who are undocumented today and the last great wave of Irish illegals in the mid-1980s. Back then it was a flood of young immigrants coming to America for economic reasons over a short period.
These days, the majority of the undocumented are older. They are people who came after the last Donnelly and Morrison visas were handed out in the early 1990s, and who have stuck it out through thick and thin since. They managed to work the system until after 9/11.
Now they are placed in impossible situations. Put simply, they want to make their lives in America.
Susan, one of the women at the meeting in New York, explained how she is unable to see her dying 72-year-old father in Ireland. Her husband, also undocumented, and her two kids have made their lives in America, bought a house and started a small business. They are in their mid-30s, not highly skilled and dread returning to Ireland to start all over again.
She knows if she goes home she cannot come back into America again.
"I love this country, I love my life here but I miss my family in Ireland. It is killing me that I can't see my father now," she says. It is a dilemma thousands of others share.
At the ILIR meetings there has been ill-disguised anger that so many Irish, considering how much Ireland has contributed to America in the past, now find themselves in this situation.
Recent laws making it impossible for illegals to secure driver's licences have made matters much worse. Many, especially men in construction and mothers driving kids to school, simply have to drive to get by.
The major bright spot is that the Irish Government and political parties, alerted by affected families in Ireland, have understood the seriousness of the issue and have moved to remedy it.Both Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern have brought it up in successive meetings with US leaders.
The Irish diplomatic corps has made the issue of the undocumented a major priority in recent times, and now the grassroots Irish are totally energised. With St Patrick's Day approaching there is a stirring of hope that significant progress can be made.
Certainly the community is focused, as the packed ILIR public meetings have attested to. In other years, issues such as Northern Ireland took priority for Irish Americans.
This year the community focus on St Patrick's Day is squarely on getting the Irish undocumented legal, as no doubt many visiting politicians will be told.
The Kennedy/McCain Bill currently before Congress would strengthen US enforcement laws but allow a path to a green card. Its prospects are uncertain.
There is massive nativist sentiment in America after 9/11, and a draconian Bill offering only enforcement has already passed the House.
Equally both Republicans and Democrats realise, however, that there is a huge problem with 11 million undocumented estimated in the country, and it must be faced sooner or later. Looming over all the discussion is the power of the Hispanic vote which could well decide the next election and is overwhelmingly pro-immigrant.
Irrespective of the fate of the Kennedy /McCain Bill, however, the ILIR is striking out for a comprehensive and long-term deal that would put the issue of Irish undocumented to rest for the foreseeable future.
Given the importance of the economic ties and the increasing need for foreign labour in Ireland, it is clear that a deal that would create a working visa exchange programme between Ireland and the US could be managed.
Ironically, though Ireland has one of the most liberal immigration systems of any country, it is relatively difficult for Americans to emigrate there.
The difficulty in passing such a bilateral agreement is ensuring that those currently undocumented in the US receive a waiver that can make them eligible for such a programme, and that its educational requirements are broad enough to include them as well. If that could be achieved it would be a remarkable feat both by the Irish Government and the Irish American community.
If a deal is not reached the footprint of the Irish in America will be elided in a very significant way. Within a generation, the ties between Ireland and Irish America will begin to fray as the direct links between both countries begins to fade.
That has significant ramifications for the vital US/Irish relationship in the long run. Politicians who are friends of Ireland in the US Congress have always been vital, as the peace process proved.
In the short term the Irish undocumented are managing a very difficult situation well. It has been a crushing few years for them as the aftermath of 9/11 has eroded their lifestyles to the point where they are living in constant fear.
It is not good enough that Irish citizens anywhere are living their lives this way. The Irish in the US and the Irish Government have an onerous task ahead to seek redress.
Ironically we should never have been in this situation. In a 1986 interview in Irish America amagazine, then House Speaker Tip O'Neill related how he and other Irish American leaders had ended up in 1965 voting for a comprehensive immigration Bill that essentially killed emigration from Ireland.
"The Irish ambassador came around to our offices and asked us to vote for that Bill because there was a tremendous brain drain out of Ireland and they wanted to stop it. That's why we voted for it," O'Neill said.
"I can remember people in my neighbourhood coming up to me, saying furiously they wanted cousins and relatives to come over here.
"And I told them, 'Listen we're doing this because we have been asked by the Irish Government to help stop the brain drain'."
It didn't stop the brain drain infact, but it did ensure that successive generations of Irish who came to America ran smack into the illegal alien issue. Now it is time to end that forever.
Niall O'Dowd is founder and chairman of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, and founder of Irish America magazine and the Irish Voice newspaper in New York