February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Defused of course.
Still, Washington take note! The Irish haven’t gone away you know.
Far from it. And while the majority of Irish-born immigrants in this country enjoy much the same rights and access that their millions of Irish-American cousins rightly take for granted, there are yet many thousands of undocumented Irish who are daily forced to cower under Washington’s table hoping for whatever crumbs and scraps might fall their way.
We can’t speak for all undocumented people living in the U.S. at this time but we can absolutely state that the kind of forced internal exile, and possible ultimate exclusion of the undocumented Irish, is no way to close the door on the story of large-scale Irish migration to the United States.
It’s a story that deserves a much better ending.
And the action by the D_il and Seanad is a helpful and hopeful start in what may well be its final chapter.
It will be interesting to see what reaction, if any, emerges from Washington in the days ahead.
It is to be assumed that most American legislators would view the houses of the Irish parliament as being both sane and friendly.
Some indeed have already welcomed the all party motion. Sen. Edward Kennedy was first in line and it is understood that Senator John McCain encouraged the idea of expressing the sentiments of the Irish people through their elected representatives.
The debate in Washington will, of course, proceed at its chosen pace and style. The sentiments of Irish legislators are not binding on members of the U.S. Senate and House.
But we hope that the concern expressed in Dublin, a concern that is well justified and rooted in the unenviable lives of thousands of undocumented Irish, will find sympathetic ears on Capitol Hill when the reform debate gains a firmer traction in the weeks and month ahead.