February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The statement from reps. Joe Crowley and Jim Walsh merely underlines the view of many that the plight of the undocumented Irish has reached a state of affairs not seen even in the heady days of the 1980s.
The statement should make interesting reading for the visiting delegation of Irish political leaders who clearly have heard the reports from across the Atlantic and have been sufficiently concerned to mount an exploratory and lobbying mission taking in several U.S. cities.
D_il members, particularly from western constituencies, have lately been heaped with disturbing stories from the parents of undocumented immigrants who find themselves trapped between their real lives in America, and their family lives back in Ireland.
Trapped in the sense that they cannot return to Ireland for any reason for fear of not getting back to their jobs and homes in America.
It may well be that the incredible story of Irish migration to the New World is reaching its fin de cycle.
If this be the case we would prefer that the end comes for only the most positive of reasons, the most obvious being economic prosperity in Ireland.
It would be saddening and insulting, however, if the very final twist in the saga turns out to be repeated tales of Irish immigrants living in the shadows on this side of the ocean while being unable to return to an Ireland that is becoming, ironically, beyond the economic reach of those same undocumented.
What the Irish community, legal and undocumented, faces now is a battle for tradition, heritage and legacy as much as reformed law.
The Irish have earned the right to draw the concluding line under their own story in this, our greatest of adopted homes.
Congressman Crowley certainly seems to take this view and we have no doubt that Congressman Walsh, and many other in the House and Senate, feel likewise.
Immigration reform isn’t just an Irish fight. But it would be no contest without the Irish in it. Well, we’re in it now.