Migrants, ‘undocumented’ and ex-pats – why they are worlds apart

The Taoiseach has bewailed the lot of the undocumented Irish in the United States, those who cannot come home to Ireland for family funerals because they would not be allowed back to America. They were in this situation, he noted, because they had "overstayed their welcome". (No mention of why they had to leave Ireland.) It was of "critical importance" that they be given a waiver allowing them to "travel back and forth freely" while the "path to legitimacy" was being negotiated. However, he said, this could only be dealt with "by having courage and leadership."

Successive Irish governments have detained in caravan parks and dreary hostels and hotels thousands of Africans and other undocumented people who have entered Ireland’s “direct provision” system. The system was introduced in 2000, when it was envisaged that the maximum time anyone would have to wait for their application for asylum to be decided upon was six months. Some of the 5,000 people currently in the system have now been waiting for more than 12 years. The Government will shortly publish proposals for its International Protection Scheme which will, it states without irony, “fast-track” those stuck in this limbo.

President Obama praised the contribution Irish people had made to the building of America. We are proud of our diaspora, of this heritage. Those self-made men and women were pioneers whose remittances sustained their families back home. Those who are trapped in direct provision here make no such contribution for the simple reason that they are forbidden to work. They are given €19.20 a week while they wait for their path to legitimacy to be negotiated. There will be no trips home for weddings and funerals, no to-ing and fro-ing across the world's oceans, no help for those they had to leave behind, many of them in danger and dire poverty.

Meanwhile, as The Irish Times revealed last year, private companies are raking in millions of euros of public funds for looking after them.

There are estimated to be 50 million refugees in the world at present, including almost five million Syrians. Holiday-makers in countries like Italy are at risk of finding dead Africans washed up on the beaches where they sunbathe, as desperate people pile onto overcrowded boats to cross the Mediterranean and try to get into fortress Europe. Others who try to get into Australia end up detained on what are in effect prison islands. There are millions of internally displaced people, known as IDPs. There are an estimated seven million stateless people, who have no rights or entitlements.

The language we use to talk about those who have left their homelands to try to make a life elsewhere is freighted with cultural meaning. The African blogger Mawuna Remarque Koutonin recently demanded angrily why white western people were known as "ex-pats" while Africans, Arabs and Asians were known as "immigrants". The term "ex-pat" summons up languid notions of linen suits and gins on exotic terraces, and there are remnants of this colonial imagery in the stories that come back from the gated communities and compounds where Irish ex-pats live in places like Saudi Arabia and Oman.

There are hardships to this life – a compound, however luxurious, is a confining place to live. But there are rewards, including, for many, the economic ability to come home to Ireland whenever you want to. The ex-pat is likely to be from the professional classes – international workers who service them are more commonly referred to as “guest workers.” Guest workers die on unsafe sites building sports stadiums in which the privileged tourists of the earth will travel to watch soccer.

The disturbing rise of anti-immigrant politicians like Nigel Farage in the UK and Marine Le Pen in France is based on fake notions of homely communities which have been disrupted and destroyed by outsiders. Amid all the céad míle fáiltes and if you're Irish come into the parlour-isms of St Patrick's Day we naturally have a sense of solidarity with our own people stranded illegally abroad. It would be racist, however, to imagine that their plight is any more important than that of those who are languishing without legal status here in Ireland. These are global citizens too, with human rights. They too deserve and need the exercise of courage and leadership.

Susan McKay is a journalist and author