Reborn on the Fourth of July

But a significant proportion of those who benefited from the Morrison bonanza are being spurred by their 10-year anniversary into taking the next step. They are becoming American citizens.
Though it lacks an empirical basis and is hard to pin down to exact figures, observations by Irish immigrant advocates and anecdotal evidence indicate that recently arrived Irish immigrants are more strongly inclined to embrace U.S. citizenship than previous generations.
At the same time, the uncertainties spawned by the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks are prompting even longtime holdouts to go through a citizenship process that can be lengthy and at times deeply frustrating.
“Huge numbers are daunted by an immigration system that is a world-class bureaucratic nightmare,” was how the Daily News in New York summed up the situation in a recent editorial.
The nightmare is particularly acute in New York City, where there is currently a backlog of more than 100,000 citizenship applications and the entire process can take longer than 18 months.
Nationwide, the waiting line exceeds 6 million, this in part due to large numbers of immigration officers being diverted to security tasks after 9/11.
Nevertheless, the lure of a blue American passport would appear to be drawing increasing numbers of Irish to the citizenship waiting line.
The fact that Irish citizens, unlike, say, their French or German counterparts, do not have to renounce their original citizenship once they embrace U.S. nationality is clearly an encouragement to Irish immigrants who might otherwise fret that they would somehow be less Irish should they become officially American.
“We are dealing with a lot of 10-year Morrison green card renewals this year and between 50 and 60 percent of the people coming in to renew are opting to go for citizenship,” said Siobhan Dennehy, executive director of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center in Woodside, Queens.
John Stahl, an immigration counselor at Emerald Isle, said that most who balked at the idea of going for citizenship were these days less troubled by the matter of changing national identity than by more technical reasons.
“Most of them have a reason such as their taxes not being in order, or they have been absent from the U.S. for longer than six months and they need to re-accumulate their time here,” Stahl said.
For some, it can be a simple matter of money. It costs $185 to renew a green card whereas the application cost of the citizenship application is now $390 after a recent $80 fee hike. This includes a $70 fingerprinting charge.
“But for the most part we find that people, particularly younger immigrants, are receptive to the idea of moving on to becoming a citizen. The numbers are definitely going up,” Stahl said.
The process can be a bit more complicated when the immigrant has been a green-card holder for many years.
“There can be problems with paperwork and some still have misconceptions that they will lose their Irish citizenship and not be able to have both passports,” said John Stahl.
“Some also worry that they will to pay more taxes and even little things like the thought of having to do jury duty can put some people off.”
Despite all these perceived negatives, the Emerald Isle offices in both Woodside and Woodlawn in the Bronx have been processing a steady stream of citizenship applications, roughly 50 per month for the first six months of this year.
“People are tired of being hassled when they travel, or feeling worried about there being a greater chance of losing a green card, especially if they leave the country for a while, or go on frequent trips,” said Emerald Isle’s Siobhan Dennehy.
According to Tom Conaghan, executive director of the Irish Immigration and Pastoral Center in Philadelphia, there has been a notable change in the sense of urgency that Irish immigrants in the Philadelphia area feel about the citizenship issue.
“More and more of them are applying the minute and the hour they become eligible,” Conaghan said.
Conaghan said that about 30 Irish immigrants who had secured citizenship with the aid of the center were being sworn in as citizens in a ceremony being held at the Philadelphia Civic Center on July 4.
In New York, meanwhile, the greater sense of urgency is also manifesting itself.
Michael Glynn, who is from Galway, came to the U.S. in the early 1970s. Like many Irish who were able to secure legal status, Glynn long-fingered the idea of becoming a citizen. He remembers filling out the forms a couple of times and making a mess of it. He’s taking no chances this time and is being guided by the Emerald Isle’s Stahl.
“I’m looking forward to being an American citizen,” Glynn said. “And I’ll still be Irish. Nothing will change. Some people think it will, they have a fear of losing their Irishness, but you won’t unless you want to lose it. And I won’t.”
What prompted Glynn to make the real push for citizenship now was in part a sense, widely held by green-card-holding legal residents, that the status afforded by legal residence is not what it once was and might be diminished further over time.
Sept. 11 is a root cause of this unease.
“Legal residence alone is not what it was and there is a chance they will change it. You never know what will come out of Congress,” Glynn said.
“Even with a green card they can stop you at Shannon airport. By becoming a citizen you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder.”

Friend’s urging
Glynn’s belated pursuit of citizenship also has a more personal twist. He’s acting on the advice of a friend, a friend who perished in the World Trade Center attack.
“John O’Neill was a friend of mine and he had advised me to become a U.S. citizen,” Glynn said.
O’Neill, a former top FBI counter-terrorism expert, was head of security at the Trade Center on the fateful day. He died attempting to save others when the North Tower collapsed.
“We last met on Sept. 9 and we were supposed to have breakfast together on the 11th,” Glynn said.
O’Neill’s death, and the motivations of those responsible, have given Glynn a stronger sense of what it means to become a citizen of his adopted country.
“I should have done this 10 years ago,” he said.
That sentiment is not uncommon these days. In Boston, a 73-year-old County Waterford man finally decided that it was time to take the big step.
According to Kieran O’Sullivan, immigration counselor at the city’s Irish Immigration Center, the man quickly discovered that the immigration system does not accord an individual the kind of respect that should come with advanced years.
“In former years driving offenses were not a big issue in citizenship interviews. But even minor traffic offenses are now coming up in interviews. Even running a stop sign,” O’Sullivan said.
In this case, the Waterford man had three offenses of this nature on his record. One was in New Hampshire, the other was in Vermont and the third was in New Jersey.
The man had been driving in the U.S. for 30 years, so three was hardly an exceptional total.
What was exceptional was the demand placed by the interviewer at the man’s recent citizenship interview.
He had to prove that he had paid the fines. His word would not be his bond and phone calls to the DMV authorities in each state were deemed insufficient.
The man had to travel to each of the states to lay hands on the paperwork himself. He had indeed paid the fines. He will be sworn in as a citizen a few weeks from now.
According to O’Sullivan, a “steady flow” of green-card-holding Irish are now heading down the citizenship trail, despite a much more inquisitive N400 application form and an interview and screening process that is now a virtual X-ray of every aspect of the applicant’s life.
“Certainly since 9/11, people with green cards have been looking more seriously at becoming citizens,” O’Sullivan said.
One citizenship case handled by John Stahl at Emerald Isle, in which the absence of required paperwork threw up an early obstacle, was resolved in recent days.
John from Clare — he preferred not to give his full name — first set foot in America in 1949. Like many of his generation, he had to sign up for the military draft. This he did, though in the end he was never called up.
As the years passed, John was married, to an American girl. They raised four American kids. But he made no move toward becoming a citizen himself.
“I felt allegiance to the flag anyway,” he said.
But when John thinks about it now, he remembers that he would feel a bit frustrated on presidential election days because he couldn’t vote.
It was his brother’s decision to secure citizenship that finally prompted John to make his move.
His brother had not waited quite as long to take the plunge. He arrived in America in 1951.
“My brother had no problem with the application process,” John said.
John’s, however, was a bit more complicated. It took a bit of digging on John Stahl’s part to lay hands on John’s draft records, which were required for the citizenship application.
John is now readying to give his fingerprints and go through the final interview.
“You’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain,” he said.
More than 50 Fourth of Julys after setting foot on U.S. soil, John is now poised and ready to call himself Irish. And American too.