Immigration forum to focus on undocumented

For three of the 10 the sudden “voluntary” departure from America meant a forced goodbye to a loved one. One of the 10 was engaged to be married. Two others were involved in what one of the group described as “serious relationships.”
As it currently stands, U.S. immigration law takes little heed of personal circumstances such as these.
The 10 were in the United States beyond their legal time, though in some cases by just a few weeks. Barring a special dispensation or changes in current legislation, they will not be allowed return to the U.S. for at least 10 years.
Their plight, and that of the undocumented Irish population in the U.S., believed by some to be in the tens of thousands, will be a particular subject for discussion this weekend in Philadelphia at the annual meeting of the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers USA, the umbrella grouping for the more than a dozen immigrant advice centers that are partly funded by the Irish government.
The meeting, over three days in Philadelphia’s Omni Hotel, will combine input from the secular centers and their Catholic Church-based Apostolate partners. It will be hosted by the Irish Immigration and Pastoral Center of Philadelphia and among the participants will be the Irish government’s minister for social and family affairs, Mary Coughlan.
As a member of the cabinet, Coughlan will have an input into the implementation of the Irish government’s recently published “Task Force on Policy Regarding Emigrants,” a study of how to improve links between the Irish scattered around the world and the inhabitants of Ireland itself.
The Task Force report addressed the undocumented issue, stating that over the last 20 years the Irish and U.S. governments, with the support of Irish and Irish American organizations, had gone to “considerable lengths” to find solutions “to the problems of the ‘undocumented’ Irish.”
The report also stated that the Task Force was aware that, in recent years, “there has been a perceptible change in attitudes in the U.S. Congress toward undocumented immigrants and a growing reluctance to introduce special measures to enable them to regularize their status.”
The change in attitude, it added, had been exacerbated by Sept. 11 and the resulting failure to pass a bill in Congress that would at least temporarily restore 245i, the immigration provision that would allow the undocumented in certain circumstances to apply for legal residence without having to leave the U.S.
“The Task Force recommends that the government continue its political engagement with the U.S. authorities in this regard,” the report said.
The exact nature or extent of this dialogue was not explained.
The dialogue in Philadelphia this weekend, by contrast, will be an open book. The participants are obviously well aware of the myriad problems facing the undocumented Irish in their various home cities.
But they will nevertheless pay especially close attention to a panel of immigration lawyers, the members of which will brief the meeting on the pace of legislative change, or lack thereof, in Washington and the manner in which existing immigration laws are being more rigidly enforced in the aftermath of 9/11.
It could be argued that the arrest and deportation of the 10 Irish aboard the train is not directly related to the new enforcement levels, that it could have happened any time in the last 15-20 years to any group of undocumented Irish anywhere in the country.
But it would be an exercise in whistling past the graveyard if the Philadelphia gathering did not face into the fact that the noose around the collective neck of the undocumented Irish population has tightened considerably since the tragic events of Sept. 11.
The immigrant counselors will collectively face the fact. They already do in their individual daily work. No doubt, too, that they will agree with the assessment of one undocumented Irishman in Boston who, in an interview given the Echo, captured in one short sentence the essence of contemporary life in the shadows of hostile immigration law.
“The INS is 10 times more serious,” he said.
“He” is named Mike for the purposes of the interview. He is from Cork and his story is a remarkable cat-and-mouse tale in which he, the mouse, has survived in this country for six years by constantly flying in and out of it.
Mike’s reason for traveling are quite legitimate. He is of the new generation of globetrotting Irish business operators, educated and equipped to do his job be it in Asia, Europe or North America.
His base of operations and his home, however, are not legitimate in the eyes of the law. Boston, in Mike’s case, is home to a one-man multinational. The city benefits from Mike’s enterprise and energy just as it benefits from the economic activities of large numbers of other undocumented Irish within its boundaries.
But the law does not recognize merit in undocumented entrepreneurship.
Mike’s travels are not what they used be. Before 9/ll he spent much of his time flying around the world. As a result, he never exceeded the 90 days allowed by his visa waiver status each time he entered the U.S.
Somewhat ironically, he was out of the country as part of his effort to remain in it when 245i was returned for a brief period at the end of the Clinton administration.
Mike appreciates the irony if not the bad luck.
His has been a most peculiar situation: Never on the ground long enough in America to exceed the time allowed for a visitor. Never legally resident on that ground either. His has been an in-between life. But now, his routine is taking on more of the appearance normally associated with the undocumented — a distinct lack of travel.
“Before 9/11 I did a lot of traveling back and forth between here and Ireland, Europe and Asia and up to Canada,” Mike said. “But back in march I got a real grilling from the INS coming through Shannon. They had a long look at my passport and were really focusing on who I was, what I was doing, where I was going and why.”
Mike kept his answers at what he felt was an appropriate length. Too short and the INS officer might suspect something was hidden, too long and something hidden might be inadvertently revealed.
He didn’t panic, he said. He did indeed have business at the other end of his flight. But what he was feeling inside had little to do with the journey, or making a buck at the end of it. He really just wanted to get back to his American home.
“For about 20 minutes I felt like the loneliest man in the world,” he said. “I was facing a potential life-changing situation, but that decision was in the hands of someone else.”
The decision, in the end, was favorable. Mike got back to Boston. But it had been close.
Since the Shannon interrogation, Mike has been keeping an especially low profile.
“I’m behaving myself and not getting into trouble, keeping things to myself,” he said. “It’s really just common sense because we live in very serious times now.”
Common sense means sometimes avoiding places where identification might be asked for. It means watching what you say to people, being politically correct in your utterances in certain company, being a sober and upstanding citizen, even if you’re not a citizen at all.
“Compared to what it was before 9/11, there’s no messing now at all,” Mike said.
Mike’s caution might appear to be a bit exaggerated but there’s even more at stake now. By virtue of a impending marriage, he has a chance at citizenship and a normal life again.
In the meantime, he is playing the mouse to officialdom’s cat.
“To give you an idea,” he said, “my mother is coming to visit from Ireland soon, but I’m not going to go into the terminal at Logan Airport to meet her. I’ll get someone who is legal to do that for me and I’ll wait outside. It’s a sad way for it to be.”
Sad, yes. But it’s the way things are for the undocumented Irish as those who seek to make things even a little better gather in Philadelphia for some serious discussions about a situation that turns an airport meeting with a mother into a moment to avoid.