What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t You Understand?

The New York Times
By LAWRENCE DOWNES

I am a human pileup of illegality. I am an illegal driver and an illegal parker and even an illegal walker, having at various times stretched or broken various laws and regulations that govern those parts of life. The offenses were trivial, and I feel sure I could endure the punishments — penalties and fines — and get on with my life. Nobody would deny me the chance to rehabilitate myself. Look at Martha Stewart, illegal stock trader, and George Steinbrenner, illegal campaign donor, to name two illegals whose crimes exceeded mine.
Good thing I am not an illegal immigrant. There is no way out of that trap. It’s the crime you can’t make amends for. Nothing short of deportation will free you from it, such is the mood of the country today. And that is a problem.
America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.
“Illegal” is accurate insofar as it describes a person’s immigration status. About 60 percent of the people it applies to entered the country unlawfully. The rest are those who entered legally but did not leave when they were supposed to. The statutory penalties associated with their misdeeds are not insignificant, but neither are they criminal. You get caught, you get sent home.
Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.
Many people object to the alternate word “undocumented” as a politically correct euphemism, and they have a point. Someone who sneaked over the border and faked a Social Security number has little right to say: “Oops, I’m undocumented. I’m sure I have my papers here somewhere.”
But at least “undocumented” — and an even better word, “unauthorized” — contain the possibility of reparation and atonement, and allow for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense. The paralysis in Congress and the country over fixing our immigration laws stems from our inability to get our heads around the wrenching change involved in making an illegal person legal. Think of doing that with a crime, like cocaine dealing or arson. Unthinkable!
So people who want to enact sensible immigration policies to help everybody — to make the roads safer, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer would with his driver’s license plan, or to allow immigrants’ children to go to college or serve in the military — face the inevitable incredulity and outrage. How dare you! They’re illegal.
Meanwhile, out on the edges of the debate — edges that are coming closer to the mainstream every day — bigots pour all their loathing of Spanish-speaking people into the word. Rant about “illegals” — call them congenital criminals, lepers, thieves, unclean — and people will nod and applaud. They will send money to your Web site and heed your calls to deluge lawmakers with phone calls and faxes. Your TV ratings will go way up.
This is not only ugly, it is counterproductive, paralyzing any effort toward immigration reform. Comprehensive legislation in Congress and sensible policies at the state and local level have all been stymied and will be forever, as long as anything positive can be branded as “amnesty for illegals.”
We are stuck with a bogus, deceptive strategy — a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border to stop a fraction of border crossers who are only 60 percent of the problem anyway, and scattershot raids to capture a few thousand members of a group of 12 million.
None of those enforcement policies have a trace of honesty or realism. At least they don’t reward illegals, and that, for now, is all this country wants.

Ex- U.S. Terror Official Backs Spitzer’s License Plan

Governor Spitzer defending his license plan at the Center on Law and Security at New York University.

By SEWELL CHAN and MATHEW R. WARREN (The New York Times)

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose plan to grant illegal immigrants driver’s licenses has encountered widespread opposition among New York State voters and politicians, announced yesterday that Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism czar, had endorsed the proposal.

In a news conference at New York University, Governor Spitzer highlighted Mr. Clarke’s support as he sought to allay concerns that the proposal would make it easier for criminals or even prospective terrorists to obtain government identification. Mr. Clarke did not appear at the news conference, but he issued a statement, which Governor Spitzer’s staff released:

“From a law enforcement and security perspective, it is far preferable for the state to know who is living in it and driving on its roads, and to have their photograph and their address on file, than to have large numbers of people living in our cities whose identity is totally unknown to the government,” Mr. Clarke’s statement said in part.

At the news conference yesterday morning, Governor Spitzer said he was unconcerned about a recent poll that showed that more than 70 percent of voters disapproved of his plan.

“I don’t base security decisions about the state of New York based on polling numbers,” the governor said.

He continued: “When I decide something is important for our security, I’ll do it if it’s right, if it’s constitutional, and it’s legal and it’s necessary. I also feel that those poll questions were structured in a way that was almost designed to get to that answer. I think if people listened to an articulation based on facts and based upon what we intend to do, they will recognize that this is smart security policy and probably support it.”

Governor Spitzer said he would begin implementing the plan by December, with the full range of changes to be completed by the middle of next year. “There is no delay, and we are doing this methodically and carefully to ensure that every step is done properly,” he said.

Some county clerks, who issue licenses in many counties, have voiced opposition to the plan, as has former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican who is running for president.

The governor has been steadfast so far, but some fellow Democrats have said they are worried that his stance could have high political costs.

Even before Mr. Clarke’s statement, some security experts had spoken favorably of the plan, saying it was a way to bring a hidden population into the open and ultimately make the identification system more secure, as well as a way to ensure more drivers are licensed and insured.

Finally, Support for Spitzer Begins to Grow

The New York Times is reporting today that Governor Spitzer's new policy on driving licenses is finally finding support among "terrorism and security experts, who, like Mr. Spitzer, regard it as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured".

About time too.

We've been wondering when the sensible voices would prevail over the right-wing noise machine.

“If you talk to people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities, when they’re investigating terrorists or crimes or unlawful activity, they want people to be in the system, because that’s how you find them,” said Margaret D. Stock, an associate professor at West Point who also works for the Army as an immigration lawyer.

“I’m a Republican,” she added. “I find it disturbing that people who claim to be law and order types want to let hundreds of thousands of people run around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on.”

Licenses for Immigrants Finds Support

The New York Times, October 9
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DANNY HAKIM

ALBANY, Oct. 8 — Opponents have decried Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s move to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants as a “passport to terror” and a “frightening” policy shift that is “dangerous and inconceivable.”

They suggest that the policy will shield illegal immigrants from scrutiny by law enforcement and airport security personnel and make them appear to be in the United States legally.

But the governor’s policy is drawing support from some terrorism and security experts, who, like Mr. Spitzer, regard it as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured.

The success of the policy, they say, will rest on the reliability of new technology that Mr. Spitzer wants installed in Department of Motor Vehicles offices to verify the authenticity of passports and other documents that the illegal immigrants will be required to submit when applying for licenses.

Some of the new security problems predicted by critics appear unlikely, several security experts said. Having a driver’s license should not make it easier to board a domestic airplane flight, because foreign passports are already accepted as identification at airports. Moreover, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration said, neither a foreign passport nor an American driver’s license is among the criteria used to determine whether the bearer will be subject to extra security screening.

Further, while critics have made much of the fact that several of the Sept. 11 terrorists used driver’s licenses to rent vehicles and board airplanes, they were able to obtain licenses as apparently legal immigrants, if in some cases by presenting fraudulent documentation. As a result, the federal commission that investigated the attacks specifically declined to make recommendations on whether licenses should be granted to illegal immigrants, saying it was not germane to their inquiry.

“If you talk to people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities, when they’re investigating terrorists or crimes or unlawful activity, they want people to be in the system, because that’s how you find them,” said Margaret D. Stock, an associate professor at West Point who also works for the Army as an immigration lawyer.

“I’m a Republican,” she added. “I find it disturbing that people who claim to be law and order types want to let hundreds of thousands of people run around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on.”

But critics of the policy see it as a retreat.

“There will no longer be any security,” said Frank J. Merola, a Republican and the county clerk in Rensselaer County. A license, he said, “will no longer be different than a fraudulent document on the street.”

“When a police officer walks up to a routine traffic stop,” he said, “he doesn’t know if someone is here legally or illegally.”

Mr. Merola added that his concerns would have been allayed if the governor had proposed creating a second class of driver’s license for the illegal immigrants. Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his group has generally opposed giving licenses to people who cannot prove they are here legally. However, he said he would not necessarily object to a system like the one Mr. Spitzer is proposing, as long as the verification technology was adequate to prevent fraud.

“We just need to know who we’re stopping, and have some degree of confidence that the information is accurate,” Mr. Canterbury said. “As long as they have proof of who they are, I don’t think that we would object to something like that.”

Under the new policy, someone applying for a license without a Social Security number would need a valid, current foreign passport, in addition to other documents that would aid in establishing the applicant’s identity.

The passport’s authenticity would be verified through new scanners installed at all Department of Motor Vehicles offices or at a central location by a new unit of specially trained personnel. In addition, under the policy, photo-comparison software will be tested in hopes of keeping people from getting multiple licenses under different names.

“If the photo-comparison technology works and if the D.M.V. uses effective methods for authenticating and verifying foreign-source identity documents, the future New York license will be more robust than today’s driver’s licenses, and of much greater use in screening and investigations involving terrorism,” said Susan Ginsburg, a former staff member of the 9/11 Commission who is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and an adviser to the federal Department of Homeland Security.

The most important thing for investigators and intelligence officials, she added, was to be able to track suspects, legal or not.

“Consistency of identity is critical to law enforcement and counterterrorism, and it’s the consistency of identity that the New York system is designed to increase,” she said.

But James M. Staudenraus, an adviser to the groups 9/11 Families for a Secure America and the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, argued that forgoing a requirement for Social Security numbers meant forgoing the only reliable method for verifying someone’s true identity. Foreign passports varied so widely in quality and antifraud protection, he said, that it was dangerous to rely on them.

“We can’t rely on technology for verifying people’s true identity,” Mr. Staudenraus said.

He worries that once would-be terrorists had access to valid state driver’s licenses, they would raise less suspicion. “Everyone who sees it assumes that the individual carrying it has gone under some sort of a background check,” he said.

The Spitzer policy means that New York driver’s licenses are unlikely to meet the federal guidelines being phased in by 2013 for a federally recognized license known as a “Real ID,” which will require, among other things, proof of legal residency. Under the federal law, at that time, the Real ID or a passport would be needed to board an airplane in the United States. In that case, New York and other states may opt to offer both Real IDs for those who want them, as well as standard driver’s licenses.

The dispute over the Spitzer policy appears headed for the courts.

In most upstate counties, county clerks operate centers for the Department of Motor Vehicles, and a dozen Republican clerks have threatened to defy the policy, even though they act as agents of the governor’s administration. Republican lawmakers have threatened to sue to block the policy, saying the governor did not have the statutory authority to act on his own; the Spitzer administration argues that previous litigation on the matter supports their position.

Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, has called the response hysterical.

“We are not talking about letting more people into this country,” he said, “we are talking about being practical about those who are already here.”

Irish held in CA raids; Hate voices attack NY Gov

News in today suggests that Irish people have been caught up in raids in Southern California. We'll post more when we know more.

Meanwhile, in New York, Governor Spitzer's office is under siege from hate voices attacking the Governor for his brave stance on driving licenses. Please take a minute to call Spitzer's office to say thank you. Whether you are a New York resident or not, please join us. We need you to drown out the voices of hate and defend this important policy as a national example. Please call Governor Spitzer (518-474-8390) to tell him, "I am calling to thank you for your leadership in improving the drivers’ license system to protect public safety for all New Yorkers and setting a national example." Read the ILIR statement

Anti-immigrant group shows ugliest of colors

The people on the anti-immigrant side are really feeling free to show their truly ugly colors now.

Take this report from CNN this morning. Petty Officer Eduardo Gonzalez is about to be deployed to Iraq for a third time but is worried about his wife Mildred who faces deportation. Imagine this; a US sailor is off to Iraq for the THIRD time and he may lose his wife and baby son while he risks his life serving this country. Everyone quoted in the story, including army officials, is sympathetic and seeking a resolution.

Everyone, that is, except for the blinkered ugly folks from an anti-immigrant group.

That's just fine, (if Mildred gets deported) according to Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which lobbies for tougher laws on illegal immigration.

"What you're talking about is amnesty for illegal immigrants who have a relative in the armed forces, and that's just outrageous," he said. "What we're talking about here is letting lawbreakers get away with their actions just because they have a relative in the military. ... There's no justification for that kind of policy."

There you have it. According to Mark Krikorian, those brave young men and women serving in Iraq deserve to have their wives and husbands deported. This kind of sentiment is beyond despicable.

Hispanic vote strength growing

Story on CNN today shows that Hispanic vote is fastest growing ethnic minority in the country. Wonder how the Republicans can keep attracting their vote while also supporting crackdowns that are hitting immigrant communities? Something's going to have to give. They can't campaign for the Hispanic vote (which helped propel George W into office) AND be anti-immigrant at the same time. Hopefully we'll see start to see more sense being spoken on immigration.

Driving while illegal; Editorial from New York Daily News

Gov. Spitzer made the right call in letting the Department of Motor Vehicles issue driver's licenses without demanding that applicants produce valid Social Security cards. It's a bummer, but he was forced into it by Washington's failure to reform the immigration system.

New York is home to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. A growing number of them have been driving without licenses - and thus without insurance - since former Gov. George Pataki ordered that everyone who signed up for a license had to produce proof of Social Security or valid immigration status.

No one knows how many uninsured drivers there are in New York, but 152,000 people have lost, or are about to lose, their licenses because of Pataki's 2002 edict. They didn't go away. They didn't stop driving. They'll just tool around without insurance. That's unacceptable and downright dangerous. It also forces up everyone else's insurance premiums.

New York's licensing regulations are, appropriately, among the toughest in the nation. Applicants must present a variety of forms of documentation, such as a passport or a birth certificate, to prove they are who they say they are. In this day and age, strict security is an absolute necessity.

To maintain that, Spitzer has ordered applicants who don't have Social Security numbers to produce foreign identification, including, at a minimum, the passport of another country. He has also ordered the DMV to bring in the latest technology to verify the authenticity of such documents. Finally, he's equipping the DMV with devices that can cross-check photos to make sure no one gets more than once license.

Strictly and effectively applied, those measures should be enough to determine the true identities of applicants. They will also put names, addresses and faces into state records increasing the state's ability to keep track of who's here. To charge, as some have, that Spitzer is enabling terrorists is outrageous bunk.

In a better world, we wouldn't have to go through contortions to uphold security standards while preventing New Yorkers from being victimized by uninsured drivers and inflated insurance costs. But that's what we'll have to do until Congress makes it possible for illegal immigrants to come out of the shadows.

Finally some sense on the radio!

Ann from Queens - and also a volunteer with the ILIR - got on the phone-in to the Brian Lehrer show and described how her life as a mother of two small children would improve under Governor Spitzer's new rules.

Ann provided some of the discussion's more illuminating points when she said;

I've been here 10 years, I pay my taxes, I have a tax ID

This is it; in a nutshell; our ghost citizens can pay their taxes, contribute to the economy (see the story from the NYT today) yet people such as John J. Flanagan (R-2nd , Suffolk County) won't be happy until they've chased all the immigrants out of the US.

Flanagan was debating the issue on the Lehrer show with Jose M. Serrano (D-28th, The Bronx and East Harlem) with Serrano defending the governor and Flanagan attacking the policy for "rewarding" illegal immigration.

Ain't it funny how some people with Irish names seem to have conveniently forgotten that their ancestors must have crossed the Atlantic at some point? Flanagan and his ilk live in a dream world where immigrants wait patiently for some mythical visa. Memo to Flanagan. THEY"RE AIN'T NO VISA PROGRAMS OUT THERE.

Please, someone help us get out of this mess!

And fair play to ya Ann, for telling it like it is!!

Call In To WNYC In New York 212-433-WNYC

Licensed to Drive

The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC (93.9 fm and 820AM) will feature a segment on the drivers licenses in New York.

Please call in to the show (bet 10am and 11am) at 212-433-WNYC (212-433-9692).

Let the New York public know how popular Governor Eliot Spitzer's move is with the Irish in New York.

We love the Gov!

Send your comments directly to the show.

Irish delight at New York U-turn

From The Sunday Independent, Sept 22, 2007

UNDOCUMENTED Irish immigrants across the state of New York were thrilled last week as State Governor Eliot Spitzer announced a U-turn on driving licences

Under current state laws, undocumented Irish immigrants were ineligible for driving licences if they could not provide valid social security numbers.

Governor Spitzer said that the law was only making the roads more dangerous for residents in New York, and he ordered a sweeping overhaul.

Under the new initiative, undocumented Irish immigrants with old or expired driving licences will be able to apply for replacement licences in December. These licences will be valid for eight years.

New drivers will be able to apply for five-year licences beginning in April 2008. All applicants will need valid passports instead of work permit documents or social security documents to prove their identity.

Deirdre Magowan from Dublin said she was delighted. "I have been unable to drive my son to school for the past two years because I had lost my licence and I wasn't able to renew it."

"I've always been afraid of having an accident so I couldn't bring him or his friends in the car."

Deirdre, like thousands of other Irish across the US, are in dire difficulties because of the crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

Her son, Oisin, has no idea that his parents are "illegal". He visited Ireland last year for his first trip ever, accompanied by his grandfather Michael. The seven-year-old said the trip was great but that he missed his parents.

Kelly Fincham, executive director of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, urged volunteers to contact Governor Spitzer to congratulate him on his brave stance.

"Governer Spitzer's initiative is a huge step forward for our community as it signals that common sense can prevail in the immigration issue," she said.

-

DMV posts new policy online

The New York DMV has posted details of the new policy online. You can read it by clicking here Hopefully, other states will see the sense in knowing who's on the roads and making sure they're insured. Please keep those faxes/emails and letters going into Governor Spitzer's office. And if you're living in other states, maybe you should put a quick call into YOUR Governor's office asking them to do the sensible thing.

In other news; some people have sent in offensive comments to the blog. It is this blog author's policy NOT to publish offensive comments from people who are too cowardly to leave their name or email. Hope that answers your question.

THANK GOVERNOR SPITZER!!!

NY STATE LAUNCHES DRIVING LICENCES FOR UNDOCUMENTED. PLEASE THANK THE GOVERNOR!!!
(The phones at Gov Eliot Spitzer's office have been taken offline)
FAX 518 474 1513
EMAIL through the website
WRITE the Governor at Eliot Spitzer, State Capitol, Albany, NY, 12224
Gov Spitzer's initiative is a huge step forward for our community as it signals that common sense CAN prevail in the immigration issue.
Please make sure that you contact the Governor's office.
THANK GOV SPITZER FROM IRISH AMERICAN COMMUNITY.
Read full press release here

Breaking News; Spitzer Announces Driving Licences

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer today announced a sweeping new initiative which will see undocumented immigrants eligible to apply for driving licences.

The initiative - which was announced at a press conference at his New York offices earlier today - will take place in two phases.

Phase one - which will take place in December 2007 - will allow those with old, or expired, driving licences to renew them for eight years.

Phase two - which will start in April 2008 - will allow completely new applications from people who have never driven before. These licenses will be valid for five years.

All applicants will be required to present a passport at the DMV to prove their identity.

More to follow

Spitzer Policy Will Let Illegal Immigrants Get Driver's Licenses

(From The Sun, New York)

Jacob Gershman, Sept 21, 2007

Illegal immigrants in New York will be allowed to obtain New York State driver's licenses under a new policy that the Spitzer administration is expected to announce shortly, a source said.

Starting in 2008, the Department of Motor Vehicles will accept foreign passports and birth certificates from immigrants as proofs of identification for new license applications. Immigrants will no longer need to provide legal status paperwork or a Social Security card, the source said.

The changes could not be immediately confirmed by the Spitzer administration.

County clerks around the state came to Albany yesterday to meet with officials from the Department of Motor Vehicles to discuss the new policy, according to the source, who said the commissioner, David Swarts, briefed the Bloomberg administration.

During last year's gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Spitzer said he would permit illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, arguing that banning them from driving worsened the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers without adding to security.

"The facts show that restricting immigrants's access to driver's licenses does nothing to improve security," a spokeswoman for Mr. Spitzer, Christine Anderson, told the Associated Press in October. "All it does is drive immigrants into the shadows, creating a class of people with no public records."

Opponents of the proposed changes said restrictions on giving licenses to illegal immigrants help to prevent identity theft and thwart terrorist attacks. They note that the September 11, 2001 plane hijackers had at least 35 licenses, which helped them to rent cars and open bank accounts.

Since the September 11 attacks, state governments have expanded driver's license identification requirements and many have begun preparing for the implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005, which requires states to adopt national standards for driver's licenses by the end of 2009.

New York is one of more than 30 states to verify the Social Security numbers of driver's license applicants.

In 2002, Mr. Pataki issued an executive order that required driver's license applicants to submit Social Security numbers to prove they were legal residents or to provide proof that they were not eligible for a Social Security number.

In 2004, to comply with an executive order issued by Mr. Pataki, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles began sending out warning letters to New Yorkers with licenses whose Social Security numbers did not match federal data.

About 58% of the 600,000 individuals who received the letter verified their Social Security numbers. Those individuals who did not verify their numbers will be able to get a legal license by December, the source said.

Paul and Jenny's Story

Anyone who has attended an ILIR function in Boston or Washington over the past two years will probably remember meeting Paul and Jenny Ladd.
The young Irish couple lived in Boston for the past 12 years and built up a successful life and busines there.
Their life in the US came to an abrupt end last summer when they were pulled over on a routine trafic stop in New Hampshire.
They have tried every means possible to stay in the US, but, as all of us know, years of tax-paying, law-abiding, community-spirited behaviour counts for nothing if you don't have a visa.
Their story was published in the Irish Times on Tuesday. Please click here to read it.

Sheila Gleeson, the Executive Director of the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers said:

The couple were tireless advocates for immigration reform for as long as I have know them (more then 5 years). When I saw this story last night I was not surprised to see that, in spite of the fact that they will not benefit themselves, they are continuing to fight for immigration reform to the end.

US no longer offers a haven as reluctant Irish prepare to quit Boston

The Irish Times,
Wed, Sep 19, 2007

Letter from Boston:They had the wake in Porterbellys, a pub in the Brighton section of Boston where Gaelic games are shown on one screen and Red Sox baseball games on another.

In the 19th century wakes like these used to be held in cottages and pubs in the west of Ireland, going away parties for those who were sailing to America and who, despite heartfelt protests to the contrary, were never coming back.

Now they hold them in America, in cities like Boston, in places like Porterbellys, for people like Paul and Jenny Ladd, who are going back to Ireland not because they want to but because they have to.

"How's Fr John?" Paul Ladd said in his singsong Cork accent.

Fr John McCarthy, a Limerick priest who works with Irish immigrants in Boston, smiled and gave Paul Ladd, a bear of a man, a hug.

"It's not right," Fr McCarthy said later, as the Ladds greeted the friends they had made during the 12 years they lived in Boston. "I look at people like Paul and Jenny and think, it's America's loss. So it is."

Paul bought Jenny three different Aer Lingus tickets before she agreed to join him in America, and that was only after she lost her delivery job in their native Mallow.

"I refused to go on the dole," Jenny said.

They landed in Boston with $250 in cash between them, and hit the pubs in Brighton, asking other immigrants where they could find work.

Within a few hours, Paul had a job, roofing. Within a few days, Jenny was cleaning houses. Within a few years, Paul had started his own roofing business.

They scrimped and saved and bought a house in Norwood, a Boston suburb where many residents are of Irish ancestry.

The Ladds tried to legalise their residency status. They couldn't. The system was broken, so like the tens of thousands of Irish who came here after the last of the Morrison visas were handed out in the early 1990s, the Ladds kept their heads down and stayed on.

Call them naive, but they thought that if you worked hard, paid taxes and kept your nose clean, eventually you would be embraced as an American.

There were two centuries of experience to suggest this approach worked, especially for the Irish, especially in Boston.

The same US government that wouldn't give the Ladds a way to get legal gladly handed them tax identification numbers and took their taxes. But, due to restrictions put in place after the 9/11 attacks, Paul Ladd couldn't renew his driver's licence last year and when his truck was stopped by police on a routine check, he and Jenny entered a system that no longer winks at people with freckles and brogues.

Shortly after arriving in Boston, Jenny got a second job as nanny for a family in Brookline, and the job came with a flat. She called her mum back in Cork to say she was living just a few blocks from where John F Kennedy was born.

A couple of months ago, Paul and Jenny Ladd stood in a courtroom in a building named for John F Kennedy and were ordered to leave the country. The Ladds never played the Irish card, even in a city where that long held currency. "We're no better than anyone else," Paul said.

They volunteered with the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, seeking a comprehensive law for all immigrants. When Senator Ted Kennedy and others unveiled a bipartisan bill in June, and President George Bush vowed to sign it, the Ladds thought they would be spared deportation. But the immigration bill crashed and burned in the Senate just weeks later.

A weak president and a cynical Congress were no match for the anti-immigrant sentiment that hovers like a fog over parts of America. Last week Michael Carr, an immigrant who has a painting business and makes a few bob on the side singing in Boston's myriad Irish pubs, dedicated the first song of his first set at Porterbellys to Paul Ladd. It was the old Christy Moore song, Ordinary Man. Ladd mouthed the words as Carr sang: "I'm an ordinary man, nothing special, nothing grand. I've had to work for everything I own."

Jenny Ladd chatted with Matt Arnold, the American boy for whom she was a nanny. Matt's all grown up now, and at 22 just graduated from university.

Jenny was wearing a loud green T-shirt, and the words on the front - Legalize the Irish - seemed especially plaintive and poignant.

Matt's mother, Victoria, stood next to them and shook her head. "I think it's wrong that Paul and Jenny are getting deported," she said. "They are the kind of people who make this country better. They're the immigrant story."

In Boston, they are the immigrant story in reverse. Boston's Irish-born community, which has been replenishing itself for a century and a half, is drying up. Since 9/11, many have gone home, and fewer are coming over.

Some held on the last couple of years, hoping for immigration reform. Now, as that seems a long way off, even if the Democrats win the White House back, the December flights to Ireland are filling up quickly. A lot of the Irish want to be home for Christmas.

Paul Ladd doesn't know what he'll do back in Cork.

"I'll find whatever work I can," he said.

Jenny has lined up a job to clean houses.

"That's what I did when I first came to America," she said. "I'm starting over where I began."

Jenny looked up at one of the ceiling beams. Hanging there was one of those authentic black and white road signs from back home. It said Bantry was three miles away. "It feels like a million miles," Jenny said.

Kevin Cullen

ILIR's New Course

Editorial from ILIR Chairman Niall O'Dowd

September has arrived and Congress will soon be back in session after the summer break.

For the Irish undocumented the prospects of a major immigration bill being passed in the House or Senate in the new session are negligible.

That does not mean there will be no action on immigration issues however.

Issues such as the Dream Act which would give legal status to children who came here with their illegal parents and know no other society are being pushed strongly by advocates such as Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois.

Senator Diane Feinstein of California has also signaled that she will be trying to pass agricultural workers legislation that would allow legalization of those who pick and harvest the California crops. Other bills may also be in the offing.

They may include a slew of border-security first provisions, put forward by opportunistic Republicans,intent on making it as hard as possible for the issue to lose some of its undoubted heat and hostility which has characterized the debate.

Thankfully there are enough legislators of principle who will oppose any such draconian measures without a measure of relief for the undocumented as well. Perhaps the-border first legislators believe that they have sufficient numbers, especially with a difficult election year coming up, to pass some bill or other but it hardly seems likely.

The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform has obviously taken a step back since the defeat of the comprehensive bill in early summer. The lobby however, has not been idle. There has been continuous discussion with senior figures in Congress, in the Irish government and elsewhere about what will be the best way forward.

The lobby has also just hired former Congressman Bruce Morrison, author of the Morrison visas bill and a long term expert on all aspects of immigration law, as their lobbyist in Washington.

While the days of the mass rallies and 3,000 people flooding Washington are over, the goodwill and contacts created by those lobby days are still there to be harvested.

Of course if you are illegal in a apartment in the Bronx, Dorchester, Sunset or Philadelphia,the news has been discouraging since the defeat of the comprehensive bill. However, it is important to note that ILIR has continued to work with other immigraition groups and has also taken stock of what is the best way for their community to proceed.

Obviously, the Irish government now becomes a major player. Given their high visibility and major access in Washington it could not be otherwise. The government of Bertie Ahern has taken a consistently strong stand on the issue of legalizing the Irish and the time has now come for all who are interested in achieving that goal to come together and work on an agreed formula.

There are certainly enough examples of countries who received fair treatement when they sought it from the American authorities. Chile, Australia and Nicaragua to name but three have worked well to further their own interests in the recent past. Ireland must look to such examples.

There is also the issue of access to Ireland for American workers, a reality that became apparent when over 6,000 Americans attended the Irish Voice/FAS jobs fair in Manhattan last year. The reality is that Americans want - and should have - access to work in Ireland in the same way that Irish want to have access to come and work here.

All in all the situation has been bleak for some months now, but there is a new possibility abroad that efforts can be made to solve the issue of the Irish undocumented. It will not be for want of trying from ILIR or we're sure the Irish government. Let's keep hope alive.

Immigrants’ Labors Lost

---

September 3, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

By MARK LANGE

San Francisco

IMAGINE we wanted to create a huge Latino underclass in this country. We would induce more than 500,000 illegal immigrants to enter annually. We would see Latinos account for half of America’s population growth. We would turn a hardened eye toward all 44 million Latinos, because 12 million jumped our borders to meet our labor demand.

We would financially motivate but morally deplore illegal immigrants’ determination to break our laws and risk their lives to work for us. We would let nativist, xenophobic amnesiacs pillory the roughly 25 percent of Latinos who were here illegally, at the expense of the 75 percent who were legal. CNN and Fox News would reduce Latinos to fodder for fear-mongering, and the documentariat would make them objects of pity, when they wanted and warranted neither.

We would know that if we paid them, they would come, but we would offer no legitimate employment. We would adopt a let’s-pretend labor policy in our fields, yards, factories and restaurants, and for child care, construction and cleaning, with a wage fakery worthy of the Soviet Union. There, the joke was “we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.” Here they would work, hard — and we would pay them, sort of, but pretend not to, denying ourselves the future tax revenue needed to pay for services we faulted them for needing.

We would ensure that the education system failed them, lamenting a dropout rate more than twice that of blacks and four times that of whites. Keeping incomes impossibly low, we would sanction Mexican-American welfare receipts twice those of natives. We would let the states launch loads of legislative half-fixes. We would have the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Homeland Security Department start an “even tougher” and more futile paper chase. We would see desperate workers fake new Social Security numbers or go underground for the next boss seeking this shabby labor discount.

We do all of this — and let it cost us more as a country — because it is a little cheaper for us as individuals and employers. And whether we knew it or not, we are deliberately fencing in our own economy.

It is in our self-interest to support labor mobility, development and advancement. Growth in productivity, fundamentally, is how we raise everyone’s standard of living. It starts with the first rung.

This month, Congress can avert a replay of the 1986 amnesty debacle by reserving permanent residency and citizenship for those who get in line and play by existing rules. Let nobody’s status be “adjusted” or “granted.” Instead, have employers sponsor anyone on their shadow payrolls to apply for a tamper-proof holographic guest worker card. Deport, adequately south of the border, anyone not sponsored. That won’t mean all 12 million. In 1954, when illegal Latino immigration was twice what it is now, a manageable number of deportations motivated the majority to repatriate.

To enforce sanctions against employers, grant the states (who bear the social costs) federal transfer payments for every undocumented worker they find, which will keep Congress and future administrations honest about paying for enforcement. If agriculture needs a lower minimum wage, negotiate and legislate it. To address the supply side, in the next trade agreement insist that Mexico adequately ensure its workers’ right to organize — to support wages and worker retention there, and a fairer fight for American exports.

The strength of an abstraction like “the economy” comes from the hands and minds of motivated and prepared people. Whether or not the left is committed to social equity — or the right, to equality of opportunity — we have at least 12 million pragmatic reasons to turn a potentially permanent underclass into a productive asset. Rather than fencing aspiring contributors out, comprehensive reform means Congress getting serious about entry-level job training and midcareer education programs for all workers. They deliver better economic returns than border patrols do.

The guy with the leaf-blower not only can learn English, he — like the unemployed steelworker — should have a chance to learn auto repair or programming. He’ll start with the jobs “ordinary Americans” won’t do. But we impair our economic future if we leave him there, imagining that’s all he or his children will ever do.

Mark Lange was a presidential speechwriter from 1989 to 1991.

Ahern Meets ILIR

(From the Irish Voice)

Two senior figures from the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) met with Foreign Minster Dermot Ahern in Ireland recently.

Ciaran Staunton, vice chairman of ILIR and board member Bart Murphy met with Ahern for over an hour in his hometown of Dundalk, Co. Louth.

Both ILIR members came away impressed with the determination that Ahern showed to address the undocumented problem which, no doubt, will come back on the radar when the Irish Parliament resumes in the fall.

“The Irish government are making very clear they are totally committed to finding a solution to the issue of the undocumented,” Staunton stated. “It is obvious that the vast majority of the undocumented members of our community are staying put in America, and we need to urgently find a solution.”

Ahern expects to be in the U.S. in late September when he has United Nations obligations. It is likely that a strategy to deal with the issue will be in place before he arrives.

Bush "committed to illegal Irish"

Many Irish immigrants settle in New York

President Bush is committed to dealing with the issue of illegal Irish immigrants in America, the US consul for Northern Ireland has said.

The failure of recent legislation which would have allowed illegal immigrants who had left the US to return means many are afraid to visit home.

US consul Dean Pittman said the president wanted to resolve the issue.

"People from Ireland have played a tremendous role in building our country," he said.

Read More

Congress needs to fix legal immigration first

San Francisco Chronicle/ by Bruce A. Morrison

Thursday, August 9, 2007

The resounding defeat of the Senate immigration reform bill was a relief to true friends of American immigration. No more urging a "yes" vote just "to move the process forward." Let's speak the truth - the Senate bill was not merely imperfect, it would have made many things worse.

"Comprehensive Immigration Reform" sounded good, but it reflects a flawed strategy.

Immigration opponents put illegal and legal immigration into the same bucket because they want to convince Americans that there's just one problem - too many immigrants. When immigration supporters make coming or staying illegally seem like just another immigration option, they invite the same wrongheaded conclusion - that cutting all immigration is the answer.

The Senate bill was the inevitable result. To secure support for legalization (which opponents will always call amnesty regardless of the technicalities), both family and employment immigration would have been cut and crippled by broadly unpopular, ideologically driven changes demanded by restrictionists. Employers all around the Bay Area and in Silicon Valley, who have created thousands of American jobs with the help of key immigrant employees, would have been hurt by these changes. Yet all the Senate's concessions produced no additional support in the end.

But to drop immigration reform from our national agenda until after the 2008 election would be wrong. Delivering what the American people are for - legal immigration based on America's needs and enforcement that prevents illegal presence - are the first steps to fixing immigration policy as a whole.

So now is the time for the House to go a better way: "Fix Legal Immigration and Prevent Illegal Immigration First." It is two Northern California representatives - Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Immigration Subcommittee Chair Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose - who can play a leading role.

Who gets to immigrate should be driven by our national interest, not our failures. Congress must make certain that the family members and employees we need and want have enough visas and get them promptly. Right now, they don't. So without legal immigration reform, enforcement strategies fail.

Besides, preventing a problem is better than enforcement after it occurs.

Prevention depends on removing the magnet of illegal employment. Today's system is a joke. It is impossible for employers to tell who is legal from the documents they are allowed to see. The pilot electronic system is a good idea, but it lacks capacity to defeat identity theft. Employers need an easy-to-use electronic system with minimal paperwork that gives a clear and dependable "yes" or "no" whether a prospective employee is legal. Let's use private sector competition to build an effective system and enlist law-abiding employers as partners in preventing illegal employment so we can focus enforcement on employers who choose to be scofflaws by avoiding or misusing the system.

Had we spent the last decade with a legal immigration system that delivered what we want and deterred what we don't, we would have many fewer people here illegally today. The silver lining of the Senate bill's collapse is that it provides the opportunity to do these two things we need most.

The longer we wait to do first things first - provide enough visas for legal immigration and remove the magnet for illegal entries created by unauthorized employment - the larger the numbers of those who will be here illegally and the less the public will trust Congress to fix the problem.

It is folly to ask Americans to accept new promises for effective immigration control when the record is so dismal. We know what to do - keep up pressure at the border and remove the jobs magnet - and unauthorized entries will plummet, especially if realistic numbers of visas are available for jobs going unfilled by Americans.

Some of that was in the Senate bill, but not without other baggage and not in a form that anyone could believe would be implemented anytime soon.

Some object that fixing legal immigration first leaves millions who are here illegally without a path to legalization. But so does the political impasse demonstrated by the Senate bill. The difference is that fixing legal immigration and stopping illegal immigration first moves toward a solution that can attract broad support, because it says "watch us" not "trust us" to the American people.

A few advocates even argue that only by holding prevention hostage can Congress be persuaded to respond humanely and sensibly to the 12 million already here. The Senate result shows that they have it backward. Most Americans will be far more open to dealing generously and wisely with residents here illegally after the federal government has shown that legalization is about curing a past mistake, not another step to millions more entering illegally in the future.

No doubt, the Senate will be slow to return to these issues. But that presents Pelosi and Lofgren with a historic opportunity to take the lead: fix legal immigration and prevent illegal immigration first.

Bruce A. Morrison, a former Democratic congressman from Connecticut, was chairman of the House Immigration subcommittee during passage of the Immigration Act of 1990 and a member of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.

Why America Needs Immigrants

The New York Immigration Coalition has posted a pr0-immgration video clip on YouTube. Click
YouTube video link to view. And send to everyone you know!

Update on US immigration

Senator John McCain is one of the co-sponsors of a bill which would put people on visa overstays in jail according to this piece in the LA Times. No news on Specter's proposals yet.

Immigration bill focuses on enforcement
Los Angeles Times - CA,USA
By Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON -- Conservative Republican senators Thursday introduced a bill bristling with immigration enforcement ...
See all stories on this topic

Can Two Kids Change Immigration Law?
TIME - USA
When teenage brothers Juan and Alex Gomez were awakened at dawn on July 25 and arrested by US immigration officials, they simply became two more among the ...
See all stories on this topic

Police toughening stand on illegal immigrants
Seattle Times - United States
When police in the small Southeast King County town of Pacific stopped Jose Luis Diaz for speeding in May, officers joked about a flier for an immigration ...
See all stories on this topic

New Life on Immigration Bill?

The Hill newspaper is reporting that Senator Arlen Specter is on the verge of reviving the immigration debate with a new bill. There are only two stories out there about this. One at The Hill and one at UPI. I'll post more when more information becomes available.

A Blight On Reason; ILIR Volunteers in spotlight

A blight on reason By Kevin Cullen, Globe Columnist | July 26, 2007 They got the news yesterday, as they stood in a government building named for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, whose portrait hung in their childhood homes back in County Cork. Paul and Jenny Ladd were told they must leave the United States by Nov. 23, the day after the 44th anniversary of Jack Kennedy's assassination. If Kennedy's 1960 election stands as some high-water mark for this country, proof that an Irish Catholic could be as loyal to the United States as anyone else, then the deportation of Paul and Jenny Ladd surely signals something almost as significant, if entirely less encouraging. When they landed at Logan Airport 12 years ago, with $250 between them, the first thing the Ladds did was find jobs. Paul had one by nightfall, roofing. Days later, Jenny was painting houses. The second thing they did was try to legalize their residency status. They couldn't. Call them naïve, but they actually believed that if you worked hard, paid your taxes, and kept your nose clean, eventually you would be embraced as an American. There were two centuries of experience that this approach worked, especially for the Irish, especially here. For those who say they cut the line, get real. There is no line. The immigration system is broken, and there is neither the political consensus nor courage to fix it. But it is utterly delusional to think that deporting Paul and Jenny Ladd will make this country any safer or better off. The same government that wouldn't give the Ladds a way to get legal gladly handed them tax identification numbers. But Paul Ladd couldn't renew his driver's license last year, and when his truck was stopped on a routine commercial vehicle check, he and Jenny entered a system that no longer winks at people with freckles and brogues. Paul Ladd never played the Irish card. He didn't want any special treatment because he looks like half the guys in Marshfield. "I'm no better than anyone else," he said. "I work. I pay my taxes. I don't bother anyone." He volunteered to lobby for comprehensive immigration reform, for everyone. He took a bus to Washington, D.C. He looked at the monuments, read the inscriptions, was more inspired than ever to become a legal American. But the immigration bill crashed and burned in the Senate last month, just weeks after it was unveiled with much hoopla. Now the only chance for the Ladds is to cut a one-shot deal for themselves. Their congressman, Representative Stephen F. Lynch, has asked the House subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law to file a private bill, allowing the Ladds to stay. Their lawyer, Chris Lavery, says it's a long shot, but it's their only shot. US Immigration Judge Eliza C. Klein said she would consider reopening their case if the bill goes forward. The Ladds are almost embarrassed that they have to make a case just for themselves. "I'll do it because I love this country and I want to stay here," Jenny Ladd said, standing outside the Kennedy building. Paul sold his Chevy 5500 work truck, along with the roofing company that he built from scratch. The Ladds sold their house in Norwood; the closing is tomorrow. The last year has been an emotional roller coaster. The Ladds, who only two months ago thought immigration reform was at hand, are now part of an unprecedented exodus back to Ireland, the reverse of what happened when the potato blight of the 1840s made Boston the most Irish city in America. Paul Ladd, a bear of a man, is perpetually upbeat, quick with a joke. But this long goodbye, disengaging from work and the life they made here, has worn him down. "I don't like being idle," he said. "When you're working, you don't have time to dwell on all that can go wrong." He looked over at City Hall Plaza, as people with coffee cups hurried to work. "I don't like dwelling, either," Paul Ladd said. Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.

© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Good News on Immigration Front

The collapse of the Senate Immigration Bill fuelled fears that the know-nothing antics of the anti-immigrant mob would create more harassment at a local level. But this week saw two significant victories in favor of undocumented immigrants and common sense.

On July 25, the Connecticut city of New Haven became the first city in the nation to introduce ID cards for undocumented immigrants; allowing access to bank accounts, library services etc.
In New York, City Council member Hiram Monserratte wants to do the same for immigrants in the city. (Hear more at nyc.org)

And on July 26, a federal judge in Scranton, PA, ruled against the City of Hazleton in a landmark challenge (Lozano v. City of Hazleton) to local ordinances aimed at punishing landlords, employers, and people perceived to be immigrants.

In a opinion, federal judge James Munley ruled that federal law "prohibits Hazleton from enforcing any of the provisions of its ordinances," which impose a $1,000-per-day fine on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants, revoke the business license of any employer who hires them, declare English as the official language and bar city employees from translating documents to another language without approval. (Washington Post)

According to the Hazelton police, over the past seven years undocumented immigrants were involved in only one-quarter of one percent of felonies in Hazleton. That's just 20 out of 8,575. It's clearly irresponsible and unfair to blame hardworking families and entire communities for crimes that they did not commit.

Irish Need DREAM Act Too

Wow. That's all I can say after reading some of the nasty pig-headed racist comments that were left on the blog regarding our support for the DREAM Act. It's almost as if this coalition of people is going to fall apart because the big bill fell apart. You know what? I'm here 12 years with no visa and I'm just as stuck as everyone else. But for f**ks sake, there's hundreds of Irish kids out there who are going to benefit from DREAM if it gets past. What's the problem? Are we really going to throw all of our toys out of the pram??Enough already. And as for the gurriers who keep whining about not getting their comments posted. GET YOUR OWN BLOG.

Help us Keep The DREAM Alive

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) has announced that he, Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) will introduce the DREAM Act as an amendment to H.R. 1585, the Department of Defense authorization bill, which is now being debated in the Senate.

The amendment will need 60 votes to pass. Its adoption would be a giant step forward for the DREAM Act, which would then stand an excellent chance of becoming law this year.

The provisions of the DREAM Act amendment are expected to be word for word identical to S. 774, the bill that Senators Durbin, Hagel, and Lugar introduced earlier this Spring. It would provide a 6-year path to permanent residence and eventual citizenship for individuals brought to the U.S. years ago as undocumented children if they graduate from high school and continue on to college or military service.

We do not yet know when the vote will be, and it is possible that procedural obstacles could prevent one from occurring at all. But regardless, it is imperative for all DREAM Act supporters to call your Senators and click here to send an e-mail message to them today, and again tomorrow, and again every day until the vote occurs. You can find your Senators' phone numbers here.

We expect anti-immigrant groups to spread falsehoods about the DREAM Act and to try to inflame their base to intimidate Senators like they did in the recent Senate debate about immigration reform. But DREAM Act supporters are passionate too. We can and must fight back and match their intensity.

CALL BOTH OF YOUR SENATORS AND TELL THEM

"PLEASE VOTE FOR THE DURBIN-HAGEL-LUGAR
DREAM ACT AMENDMENT TO H.R. 1585
SO THAT IMMIGRANT STUDENTS BROUGHT HERE AS CHILDREN
CAN REALIZE THEIR POTENTIAL"

Your Senators' phone numbers are online at:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

To send an e-mail message to your Senators please go to:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/NILC/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=12129

What else you can do:

• Forward this message to every listserv and everyone you know
• Post it on blogs, MySpace, Facebook, or other on-line networking tools
• Call in to C-SPAN or other radio or television shows where there is some hope of a sympathetic audience (not anti-immigrant propaganda sites)

The DREAM Act in Brief:

The DREAM Act is narrowly tailored

It would apply only to individuals brought to the U.S. at least 5 years ago as children, who have grown up here, and who have remained in school and out of trouble. They could get a green card 6 years after graduating from high school if during that time they continue on to college or serve in the military.

The DREAM Act is not a "mini-amnesty"

At its core, amnesty is forgiveness for wrongdoing. That does not apply to DREAM Act students who were all brought here years ago as children. The DREAM Act rewards them for staying in school or serving our country.

The DREAM Act would benefit taxpayers

The DREAM Act would provide hope to immigrant students and lead many more of them to remain in school. As an example of the fiscal benefits of this, a RAND study showed that a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant woman who graduates from college will pay $5,300 more in taxes and cost $3,900 less in government expenses each year than if she had dropped out of high school. This amounts to an annual fiscal benefit of over $9,000 per person every year, money that can be used to pay for the education of other children. State and local taxpayers have already invested in the education of these children in elementary and secondary school and deserve to get a return on their investment

You can find more information about the DREAM Act here.

Getting on with it...

The response to the question below was phenomenal. I couldn't post all the comments because of some of the ahem, "language", but we received close to 100 and 91 of those were from people who said they were staying. The one I liked best just said "No (expletive deleted) Surrender"!

One guy wrote in to say that he was not giving up until he was forced out. He said he employed nine workers and had been paying all his taxes and his employees' taxes for over 10 years in the hope that doing the right thing could help him adjust his status. He also spoke about how he had to put his seven year old son on a plane on his own last summer so the grandparents could see their American grandson.

This man, and the thousands of other undocumented Irish here, could be the last remnant of that strange animal called Irish America. If they give up on America, then Ireland may as well give up its idea of a "special relationship" with America.

Stay or go? What do you think?

I've been inundated all weekend with calls from people here who want to stay and fight for a fair resolution. I've heard from people who've been here as long as 20 years who are still not giving up on America. Yeah, some people are saying they're moving out, but most of them are talking about going to England or Australia, no-one's talking about going back to Ireland.

Interestingly, it turns out more than 12,000 people a year are going to Australia from Ireland on the working holiday visa. Wow. That's solid proof that Irish people are still leaving Ireland. They're just not coming here.

What do YOU think? Is it time to give up on America? Or is it time to redouble our efforts? If you're undocumented, please let me know what you plan on doing.

We're not going away! We're staying to fight this battle!

The Irish in the US are a fixture. It has always been that way, and looks like it always will. For all the Irish people who have made the massive decision to leave Ireland over the centuries, to leave family and friends and a country they love, it has never been a decision they made lightly. And it is also not a decision that makes them any less Irish.

The number of people in the US that consider themselves Irish Americans is just astounding – 40 million people in the last US census proudly listed their Irish ancestry. These are the people who travel to Ireland to visit family and friends, to find their ancestors and understand where they came from. These are the people with amazing social and economic ties to Ireland.

To list all the Irish who have "made it" in the US, who have achieved the American Dream, as they say, and have made the difference, would take forever! But just scan the names of previous US Presidents, of current Senators and Representative, local politician's, business people - lots of proud Irish names on all those lists.

However, somewhere along the way, the number of US visas issued to the Irish has dwindled to an ridiculously low number. In 2005 in the Diversity visa program, out of the 48,151 issues to the entire world, Ireland received 76! Or if you look at the US visas issued to the entire world that same year, 1,122,373 visas in total, the Irish allocation was 2,088! That includes marriage, work and Diversity visas - the only 3 options open to the Irish these days.

For the current generation of young Irish people who find themselves caught in the twilight zone of being undocumented in their adopted home, the magnetism that got them here (and the millions before them) doesn't just disappear! We understand that we can, with hard work and determination, do anything in the US. That's why we're here.

We aren't going to hide and keep quiet. We've never done that! We are going to do what the Irish have always done, we are going to ignore the IRISH NEED NOT APPLY signs and stay and fight this battle. We've always given the US our best shot and we're not going to give up now!

From the Papers: Immigration Reform and the US

Strong borders are necessary to protect us from those who would harm us, but what will become of the people who have already risked death and imprisonment just to be able to work for a living here? How does it benefit us to deny them citizenship? Granting them citizenship would, with the stroke of a pen, both require them to pay taxes and require their employers to account for them, thereby canceling out the two chief complaints against them: that they drain our public services and that their employment undermines our economy. Read More

News Clips from CCIR July 5, 2007

July 5, 2007

A Mob-Rule Moment
Washington Post, United States

Refugees Ask Courts for Citizenship Help
Washington Post, United States

Tancredo rides high on illegal immigration
Los Angeles Times, CA

Plans to control illegal immigration split Carpentersville
Springfield State Journal Register, IL

Students fasting for green card provision
San Francisco Chronicle, USA

Group threatens work stoppage
Mohave Valley News, NV

Governor loses compass, finds Russell Pearce
Arizona Daily Star, AZ

Flash of brown skin and the police chase is on
Daytona Beach News-Journal, FL

House bill would take illegals out of census
Southeast Missourian, MO

Man Accused Of Bilking Immigrants Stays In Jail
By DAVE ALTIMARI

Courant Staff Writer

July 3, 2007

NEW HAVEN

A Superior Court judge kept bail at $3.5 million Monday for the Branford man accused of bilking illegal immigrants out of more than $500,000 under the guise that he worked at the Yale Law School.

Ralph Cucciniello made his first appearance in a Connecticut court. By the time he appears on July 17, Cucciniello may be facing more charges. Investigators say they have identified more than 110 victims.

In seeking to keep the bail at $3.5 million, prosecutor Brian Leslie informed Judge Richard Damiani that the state isn't done investigating Cucciniello.

"These are very serious charges and additional charges are likely to be filed in this case," Leslie said.

Cucciniello was arrested late last week in Warwick, R.I., on an arrest warrant charging him with 59 counts of larceny.

Damiani signed the warrant after investigators from New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington's office got word that Cucciniello was living in a hotel near the airport in Rhode Island. The judge dismissed a recommendation from the bail commissioner and a public defender appointed for Monday's court appearance to lower the bond to $100,000.

Investigators do not know why Cucciniello left his Branford home, where he had lived for more than three years, and moved into a Marriott Residence Inn off I-95 in Warwick. He had been living there for at least a few weeks, giving him ample time to disappear if that's what he intended to do, law enforcement sources said.

Cucciniello was arrested Thursday night by Warwick police. He was wearing a light blue Yale T-shirt when detectives knocked on his hotel door and told him they had a warrant for his arrest.

Cucciniello waived his extradition rights during a brief appearance in a Rhode Island court Friday and was brought back to Connecticut early Monday.

He was wearing a Rhode Island prison-issued blue T-shirt with his hands handcuffed behind his back when he was led into the Elm Street courthouse with the 24 other people from the New Haven area arrested and held over the weekend.

Cucciniello, 55, did not speak during his brief court appearance. He was shuffled back to lockup by a marshal. The case was transferred to the courthouse which handles serious crimes. The arrest warrant in the case remained sealed.

Authorities say it was through his affiliation with the prestigious Yale University Law School that Cucciniello convinced possibly hundreds of illegal aliens, mostly Irish, that he had found a loophole in the immigration laws and could obtain green cards - proof of permanent residency - if they gave him $5,000.

Cucciniello claimed he was a professor working on a program to recruit illegal immigrants that was authorized by the dean of the law school. Many of the illegal immigrants brought the cash into the law school and handed it to Cucciniello as he sat at a desk in what he said was his office, police charge.

The charges include two counts of first-degree larceny, 57 counts of second-degree larceny and one count of violating the state racketeering act. In one of the larceny cases he is accused of bilking more than $100,000 from a Long Island couple.

Cucciniello had a Yale identification card and an e-mail address through the law school. Cucciniello gained access to the school through his affiliation with Prof. Steven B. Duke, who had worked on the case of New Jersey mobster Martin Taccetta, an acquaintance of Cucciniello.

Contact Dave Altimari at daltimari@courant.com.

Copyright © 2007, The Hartford Courant

Cardinal Mahony reacts to Congressional failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform

Death of a bill: Senators kill legislation to reform U.S. immigration system

By Kaitlynn Riely
7/2/2007
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The day after Hispanic congressmen gathered with priests and Hispanic families to pray that wisdom be granted to members of the Senate, a bipartisan bill to reform immigration failed to garner the votes needed to move into voting on the issue.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a member of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus, led a news conference on the terrace of the Cannon House Office Building on the morning of June 27. He said the purpose of the assembly was "so that together with our prayers we can enlighten the Senate of the United States and encourage people to have the courage to do what is right and what is correct."

Gutierrez and Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., along with religious leaders, spoke in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, a topic Gutierrez called a "moral issue."

But June 28 the Senate, after weeks of debate, failed to pass a bill that would have established a path toward citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States while strengthening border security. The vote to limit debate and proceed to a vote on the bill was 14 votes short of the 60 it needed, with a vote of 46-53 in favor of limiting the debate.

Catholic reaction to the failed attempt to pass the immigration bill has been largely negative.

Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., issued a statement June 29 as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, saying the bishops were troubled by the failure to reform the immigration system. He called the current state of the system "morally unacceptable."

"The U.S. bishops shall continue to point out the moral deficiencies in the immigration system and work toward justice until it is achieved," he said.

Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, called the Senate's inability to agree on comprehensive immigration reform a "monumental failure for our country." He lamented the unchanged fate of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants who live in fear of deportation.

"Today's action to give up on the bill leaves in place the status quo – a deeply flawed, untenable and much-criticized immigration system that is (in) desperate need of reform," Father Snyder said in a statement.

Opponents of the bill, mostly Republicans, refused to approve the legislation because they said strengthening border security should be a prerequisite to expediting the legalization of millions of immigrants.

Speakers at the Hispanic caucus' news conference argued that the immigration system, as it currently exists, damages immigrant families. An immigration system that splits up families is wrong, Gutierrez said.

"Our families are the cornerstone of society," he said.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles also issued a statement about the failed bill, which he said would have affirmed human dignity for immigrants. He echoed the message of those at the news conference, saying that the current system contributes to the separation of families.

"Every day that this status quo is permitted to exist is a moral failure for our nation, as well as a legislative one," he said.

Although most analysts predict that the issue of immigration reform will not come to a vote again until after the 2008 elections, Father Snyder encouraged Congress to rise above partisan politics to deliver a solution this year.

Cardinal Mahony acknowledged it is unlikely that the Senate will take up the immigration topic again in the next few months but said the Catholic Church would remain active in supporting effective immigration reform legislation.

Gutierrez expressed confidence that religious communities would play the role of advocate for immigrants on social justice issues as they have done in the past -- such as for civil rights for African-Americans in the 1960s. And the government should listen, he said, because it has a responsibility to protect immigrants.

"We will stand up in every church across this country to say that our government has a responsibility to defend the most vulnerable of our society," Gutierrez said. "And the most vulnerable of our society today is our immigrant community -- our undocumented community."

At the caucus' news conference, speakers refuted the idea that illegal immigration is limited to the U.S.-Mexican border. Many of them interspersed their English with Spanish, but stressed that the immigration debate is not just a Hispanic issue, but rather an issue that affects all Americans.

"Immigration is not just a Hispanic issue, or an Irish issue. It isn't just an African issue; it isn't just an Asian issue," Baca said. "It isn't an issue specific to one group of people nor is it an issue specific to any one place. It's not just about security issues, agricultural issues, business issues -- it's America's issue."

Irish-born Father Brendan McBride, coordinator of the Irish Immigration Pastoral Center in San Francisco, and Father Michael Leonard of the Chicago Irish Immigrant Support Center, who is also a native of Ireland, told the mostly Hispanic group that – as Irish Catholics – they could empathize with the experience of prejudice and exclusion.

"We understand the hurt of not being able to travel back for a funeral, of not being able to travel home for a wedding," Father McBride said. He said the Catholic community would keep the fight for comprehensive immigration reform alive.

Before the measure died in the Senate, Gutierrez had expressed confidence that the immigration bill would proceed to the House, but warned Republicans that the patience of the immigrant community was running out. The members of the immigrant community, he said, are not "hordes of people that have come here to destroy our American way of life," as he said some people claim.

"We are hardworking people that want an opportunity to contribute even better to America," Gutierrez said.

Catholic News

Legalize the Irish!

I have to say, I'm glad theres only a hour left in this week - its been roller coaster, to say the least.

But tomorrow morning is truly the beginning of the next phase of our campaign. Over the last 18 months, we have collectively learned so much, we've achieved so much and we have educated so many people along the way, who never even knew there was such a thing as an undocumented Irish immigrant! These achievements are the foundation we can build the next phase of this campaign on. We knew this wasn't going to be the 100 yard dash – nothing in politics ever is. The marathon to legalize the Irish was always going to be just that, a marathon. And we have all done the necessary training to get us over the finish line together!

Lets continue to build on all our hard work of the last 18 months and get this job done, once and for all!