Earlier this year, immigration 'reform' legislation was introduced in the Dáil. The legislation contained some of the most draconian provisions ever announced in this country, including harshly punitive measures for most undocumented immigrants, and limitations on their right to challenge the Government's decision on their status; biometric ID requirements; new restrictions on the right to family reunification; and the creation of an underclass of temporary migrant workers with few labour rights and no prospect ever of permanent residency. The bill was strongly opposed by civil liberties organisations and many of the country's leading trade unions, as well, of course, by left or left-leaning political parties such as Sinn Féin, Labour, and the Greens, who condemned its obvious human rights violations.
If the above paragraph doesn't sound familiar, it's because I've changed a couple details. The bill I'm talking about is real (and so are all those measures, and the bit about the civil liberties and trade union opposition), but it wasn't introduced in the Dáil - it was the US Congress. And far from condemning it, every major political party in this State lobbied heavily for its passage. Including the left or left-leaning ones. Including my own.
The reason, of course, is because of one of the few positive provisions in the Bill - the regularisation process for those undocumented immigrants who can afford it. For the sake of a relative handful of Irish people to whom, let's face it, the worst that could happen is that they'd have to come back and live in Ireland, we have not only accepted but actively supported legislation that we would never in a million years agree to in this country.
I understand the realpolitik involved, and I'm sure that if I had a loved one in the US who I hadn't seen in years because of the current immigration regime (as opposed to just a lot of friends in that situation, which I do have), I'd probably be more concerned about them than about the millions of people - mostly poor, brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking - who are going to suffer greatly when this legislation is finally passed.
But it still makes me a little bit sick.
Showing posts with label Undocumented Irish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Undocumented Irish. Show all posts
Ahern: undocumented Irish "entitled" to remain in US
Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern is quoted in today's Examiner as saying that the undocumented Irish are "entitled" to American residency on the grounds that they have "built up the US".
What an immensely stupid thing to say. Although it may play well at home, the use of such a presumptuous word as "entitled" will do nothing but get the backs up of those Americans not naturally inclined to be sympathetic to the reform proposals. That includes the Republican legislators on whom these proposals depend. Besides which, there is absolutely no objective observer who would consider the Irish undocumented to be any more entitled to US residency than the Chinese undocumented, the Mexican undocumented and all the other ethnic groups who have contributed at least as much to the United States.
I support the campaign for US immigration reform (although not the essentially right-wing McCain/Kennedy Bill, but that's another subject) on the utilitarian basis that there is more to be gained all around by allowing these people to stay than by throwing them out. But to argue that one particular group of immigrants is more deserving than others is asinine, racist, and completely unhelpful to the campaign.
What an immensely stupid thing to say. Although it may play well at home, the use of such a presumptuous word as "entitled" will do nothing but get the backs up of those Americans not naturally inclined to be sympathetic to the reform proposals. That includes the Republican legislators on whom these proposals depend. Besides which, there is absolutely no objective observer who would consider the Irish undocumented to be any more entitled to US residency than the Chinese undocumented, the Mexican undocumented and all the other ethnic groups who have contributed at least as much to the United States.
I support the campaign for US immigration reform (although not the essentially right-wing McCain/Kennedy Bill, but that's another subject) on the utilitarian basis that there is more to be gained all around by allowing these people to stay than by throwing them out. But to argue that one particular group of immigrants is more deserving than others is asinine, racist, and completely unhelpful to the campaign.
Whatever one thinks of the Afghani hunger strikers - and I'm of the view that Afghanistan is one of the last countries that anybody should be deported to - it's hard to argue with the logic that their predicament is far more serious than that of the undocumented Irish on whose behalf the Dublin Government has exerted such effort. The Government's position is that to grant these 41 men the right to stay here would undermine the immigration and asylum system. And allowing 40,000 or so undocumented immigrants to stay in America just because they're Irish wouldn't?
Bertie obviously thinks it's hard to argue, too, because yesterday in the Dáil he simply refused to answer the question when Joe Higgins put it to him, twice.
Edit: I've just seen this in today's Indo: "The Government is to give an additional $50,000 (€39,000) to an influential lobby group working to ensure undocumented Irish can stay in the US."
Hypocrisy, pure and simple.
Bertie obviously thinks it's hard to argue, too, because yesterday in the Dáil he simply refused to answer the question when Joe Higgins put it to him, twice.
Edit: I've just seen this in today's Indo: "The Government is to give an additional $50,000 (€39,000) to an influential lobby group working to ensure undocumented Irish can stay in the US."
Hypocrisy, pure and simple.
I was disappointed but not altogether surprised to see that the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform opposed the work stoppage in the US yesterday, which highlighted the contribution of immigrants to the American work force.
This appears to me to be something of a pattern. I was in Washington a couple weeks ago, when close to half a million immigrants, mostly from Latin America, and their supporters rallied in support of legislative reform, and I took part in that demonstration. Obviously with a crowd that size it's not possible to speak definitively about who was or wasn't there - but I walked in and out and all around the crowd a dozen times, over the course of a couple hours, and I didn't see one single bit of evidence for an ILIR presence. In such an important march on the nation's capital, I would have expected all interested groups to be in attendance.
I suspect - and I would love to be proven wrong on this - that this is part of a concerted effort by ILIR to distance themselves from "those" immigrants. To gain support from those segments of American society (and Congress) whose opposition to immigration reform is motivated primarily by anti-Hispanic sentiment. If I am correct about this, and again I would welcome evidence (evidence not assertions!) to the contrary, it is nothing less than a coded appeal to racism. And it is disgraceful.
Irish immigrants should be trying to change the law through solidarity with other immigrants, not by portraying themselves as somehow different or more deserving than the rest.
This appears to me to be something of a pattern. I was in Washington a couple weeks ago, when close to half a million immigrants, mostly from Latin America, and their supporters rallied in support of legislative reform, and I took part in that demonstration. Obviously with a crowd that size it's not possible to speak definitively about who was or wasn't there - but I walked in and out and all around the crowd a dozen times, over the course of a couple hours, and I didn't see one single bit of evidence for an ILIR presence. In such an important march on the nation's capital, I would have expected all interested groups to be in attendance.
I suspect - and I would love to be proven wrong on this - that this is part of a concerted effort by ILIR to distance themselves from "those" immigrants. To gain support from those segments of American society (and Congress) whose opposition to immigration reform is motivated primarily by anti-Hispanic sentiment. If I am correct about this, and again I would welcome evidence (evidence not assertions!) to the contrary, it is nothing less than a coded appeal to racism. And it is disgraceful.
Irish immigrants should be trying to change the law through solidarity with other immigrants, not by portraying themselves as somehow different or more deserving than the rest.
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