February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Even if they leave the U.S. successfully, there is a possibility that they will not be able to reenter. For one Irish woman, though, it is already too late. Mary Kelly is spending her Christmas in Danbury, Conn., inside a federal prison.
Kelly is in her 40s and is from Limerick. She was sentenced to 51 months in jail in December 2001 for illegally reentering the U.S. after having been deported twice for being undocumented.
She has three children in this country and after Sept. 11 she returned to the U.S. to see them and to attend the funeral of a cousin, a firefighter who died at the World Trade Center.
“Sept. 11 determined my fate,” said Kelly.
Her account of her arrest is harrowing. Communicating from Danbury Federal Correctional Institution by letters written in a neat hand in pencil, she said she was arrested “in the New England area” in the early hours of Oct. 12, 2001. She was sentenced in a New Hampshire court and later transferred to Danbury. She believes that someone tipped off the Immigration and Naturalization Service that she had returned to the U.S.
The story Kelly tells is also one that she carefully controls. She would not say where her children were or even what their names are, saying, “they do not need further ostracization, judgment, questions or threats.”
Several people familiar with Kelly through letter writing said that they felt there was more to the case than at first apparent but were unable to give further details. The Irish consulate in New York, while aware of the case, declined through a spokesperson to comment.
“In the early hours of Oct. 12t, six armed Immigration and Naturalization Service agents together with a United States marshal stormed my children’s home,” Kelly said.
She was handcuffed, shackled, arrested and taken away, she said. Her pocketbook was taken from her and although she has petitioned for its return, so far, she said, this has not happened.
Kelly has made several unsuccessful attempts to be repatriated to Ireland, where she could serve the remainder of her sentence. Such a situation can be arranged if two governments agree for the return of the prisoner to his or her home country. A photocopied document provided by Kelly shows that the U.S. Department of Justice denied her request on June 28, 2002.
Other correspondence between Irish government officials was copied to Kelly. One letter from an Irish Ministry of Justice official to a civil servant in the Office of the Taoiseach acknowledges that “the U.S. authorities have informed us that the rehabilitative goal of transfer and reintegration into Irish society would not be accomplished in this case. They appear to have reached this conclusion on the basis that Ms. Kelly twice reentered the U.S. illegally following deportation from that country.”
Kelly’s attorney, James Gleason of Henniker, N.H., said that Kelly had decided to return to the U.S. after being deported “when it was very clear that she shouldn’t have.”
“She is a very bright, articulate woman,” Gleason said. “I am biased as her advocate. She is very likeable, but obviously the federal prosecutor was not humored by her decision to return to the country.”
Attorney Eamonn Dornan, who has had extensive experience of immigration cases in New York, said that on the face of it, Kelly’s sentence seemed unduly harsh, but that he was unfamiliar with her case.
Gleason said that the sentence of 51 months was not unusual in a case of this nature.
Kelly, meanwhile, has a message for other undocumented Irish immigrants. “If your status is questionable, do not take the risk.”