Madam, - On July 17th the Minister for Justice issued the first 400 notices for deportation of non-EU parents of children born in Ireland.
Giving these parents only 15 days to prepare written representations for temporary leave to remain, without allowing them State-funded legal advice - The Irish Times (July 28th) reported that lawyers are charging between €2,000 and €4,000 for assistance with their humanitarian leave applications - leaves these candidates for deportation very vulnerable indeed.
According to the Constitution, all persons born in the island of Ireland are Irish citizens.
The Supreme Court ruling of January 2003 has jeopardised this right to citizenship, without which "human rights" are an empty word.
The insistence by the Minister of Justice that these citizen children will have to leave together with their non-EU parents deprives tens of thousands of Irish citizens of their constitutional right to family integrity.
This decision leaves migrant parents hugely bewildered, terrified and confused.
It marks Ireland as a racial State interested only in controlling incoming migrants, instead of welcoming them as harbingers of great opportunity.
Together with thousands of migrant parents and their allies, I call upon the Government to offer a moratorium for non-EU parents of children born in the State and stop these deportations immediately.- Yours etc.,
RONIT LENTIN,
Department of Sociology,
Trinity College, Dublin.