February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The paths of the Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and Fine Gael leader Enda Kelly came close to crossing more than once as they visited various Irish immigration centers in the New York area.
Kenny said he had also met with undocumented immigrants while attending games at Gaelic Park in New York and also in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended a Mayo Association event.
A statement issues on behalf of Ahern, who made a stopover in Boston as well as New York, said that the purpose of the minister’s visit was to intensify support for measures that would grant legal residence status to the undocumented Irish living in the U.S.
Ahern said that he would be visiting Washington in a few weeks in order to “underpin the Irish government’s campaign on behalf of the undocumented Irish.”
However, moves towards a full debate in Congress on immigration reform seemed destined for further delay this week as a new and likely bruising debate started up following President George W. Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee.
The nomination will be taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee which is also handling the main immigration bills including the Kennedy/McCain bill that is most favored by Dublin.
Ahern, in an interview, said that the Irish government wanted to see a path to permanent residence for the undocumented Irish to emerge from any reform debate.
Ahern seemed to take direct issue with the Bush administration’s proposal to grant temporary work visas but only after applicants first returned to their home countries.
He said it would be “virtually impossible” and “impractical” for undocumented immigrants to do that in advance of securing any advance in status.
Referring to the recent unanimous vote in D_il Eireann in support of the Kennedy/McCain bill – a move that was first suggested by Senator John McCain to a visiting Irish parliamentary group – Ahern said that every member of the D_il and Seanad had constituents who had family members living under the shadow of illegality in the U.S.
Ahern said that the Irish government and political parties had to be conscious of the fact that they were asking another parliament [Congress] to do something very specific.
But his government would continue its efforts to “encourage” as many members of Congress as possible “towards our way of thinking.”
Ahern said that it would be necessary to bring the influence of the wider Irish community in the U.S. to bear during the upcoming debate. This could be accomplished in the contest of a “more focused lobby effort.”
It was just such an effort, undertaken by the Irish Immigration Reform Movement, that attracted considerable congressional support in the 1980s and early ’90s.
Kenny, meanwhile, said that no opportunity should be lost to make as many contacts with Irish America in an effort to move the immigration reform debate forward, particularly in the direction envisaged by the bipartisan Kennedy McCain bill.
“We are not looking for something, gratis or for nothing,” Kenny said in an interview during his stop in New York.
“The undocumented Irish do make a contribution to the U.S. economy. They have set their lives here. What needs to be done to regularize their situation should be done,” he said.
Kenny said that the issue had become “very personal” back in Ireland.
Many people, he said, were unable to make it back even for the funeral of a parent.
Minister Ahern, meanwhile, met with the editorial board of the New York Times during his visit in New York. He also had discussions with New York Attorney General Eliott Spitzer and former president Bill Clinton.