New Irish-American Immigration Lobby

[Hakluyt]

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/irish_american_group_to_lobby_for_undocumented_workers

[Felix the Cat]

Irish American group to lobby for illegal aliens

A new group called The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) has been formed by numerous big hitters in the Irish American community to fight for the rights of illegal aliens and to push for the passing of the McCain/Kennedy virtual amnesty bill. The new group is particularly upset with the bill HR.4437, which the House of Reps will soon be voting on. This bill, co-authored by Reps James Sensenbrenner and Peter King, makes being an illegal alien an aggravated felony and allows immigrant advocates who help illegals to be charged with alien smuggling.

ILIR founder Niall O’Dowd says “[t]his is the kind of bill that brings out the worst in Americans” while long time Irish American activist and ex-Congressman Bruce Morrison has called it “mean-spirited and anti-immigrant.” Ted Kennedy’s general counsel on immigration and the Ancient Order of Hibernians are also involved with the new lobby group. All of them believe that an enforcement only approach to immigration is not in keeping with America’s heritage - “nation of immigrants” and all that.

Concern for Irish illegal immigrants is apparently the main concern of these lobbyists. I’m sure most of us can agree that the Irish in America are not a problem. But there are only about 50,000 illegal Irish in the US and millions of Mexicans and other non-European illegals who will stand to benefit if the new lobby group is successful. Once again a faction within the European American nation is willing to put their own particular interests ahead of those of the greater community.

The only positive to take from this is that one of HR. 4437’s authors, NY Congressman Peter King, is himself a prominent member of the Irish American community. Given that his many blue collar ethnic Irish constituents were impacted more than most by 9/11 perhaps he feels the ordinary voter in his district cares more about border control than special interest ethnic politics.

Weikel and Lenny are going to love this

[Lenny]

This is hardly surprising, "Organized Irishry" has been bad for America, they have always worked against Native American (not Indian) interests and Protestant interests (those two are one and the same). Regular Irish-Americans in my experience are typically left-wing and self-aggrandizers, and very often jump to the defense of immigrants and non-whites, with their stories of how the Irish were "discriminated" against in the past in this country


I would recommend that the US government use the following sign when advertising to get people to write US immigration law:

http://img471.imageshack.us/img471/3230/nina2cd8kx.jpg

[Felix the Cat]

Regular Irish-Americans in my experience are typically left-wing
I know this was true in the past, but is it really still the case today?

eg. do Irish Americans still vote Democrat in large numbers?

[Lenny]

I know this was true in the past, but is it really still the case today?

eg. do Irish Americans still vote Democrat in large numbers?Their rate of Democrat-voting is much lower than it used to be for sure (they used to vote Democrat at levels close to what blacks do today) but they still vote Democrat at the second-highest rate of any white group in the US, second only to the Jews. Also Democrat politicians from heavily Irish Catholic areas are almost always more liberal than Democrats from elsewhere, the South, the Midwest, the non-Coastal West.

It's more than just about voting patterns though, I have noticed that Irish-Americans are more liberal on the whole than other whites, for instance they always jump at the chance to bring up supposed past discrimination against the Irish in a way not dissimiliar to what blacks do with past anti-black discrimination.

[Kodos]

I know this was true in the past, but is it really still the case today?

eg. do Irish Americans still vote Democrat in large numbers?

Yep, the only large catholic group which defected to any degree towards the GOP are the WOPs( who tend to not like the catholic church very much and really hated when the Dems went from being the party of the working guy to the party of welfare parasites feminist and minorities).

[Jonathan]

eg. do Irish Americans still vote Democrat in large numbers?
Friends of mine working in America last Summer were told by one of the heads of the Irish American lobby(no I wont be naming him) that Irish-Americans are turning Republican because "The Democrats wanna give it all to the niggas" - fact.

[infoterror]

I'll file this one under "Black Power Organizations."

[Geist]

I'll file this one under "Black Power Organizations."

:D

But seriously this is just trolling

:nono:

[Lenny]

Now the Irish government is giving money to these people!


Minister Ahern announces grant of €30,000.00 for Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform

Dermot Ahern TD, Minister for Foreign Affairs, today announced a grant of €30,000 to support the work of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) in the United States. The grant is a further indication of the Government's strong support for measures which would grant legal residence status to undocumented Irish living in the US.

Announcing the grant, the Minister said that the Government is very supportive of the organisation which aims to highlight grass-root support for immigration reform and get the Irish American community involved in the immigration debate.

“The ILIR has been established at a particularly critical time in the US as the legislative debate on this issue enters an important phase. The ILIR is throwing its weight behind the McCain/Kennedy immigration reform bill. In my own visits to the US I have expressed the Irish Government's strong support for this bill. The positive initiative taken by Senators McCain and Kennedy in the US Senate, mirrored by Representatives Kolbe, Flake and Gutierrez in the House of Representatives would enable undocumented Irish people to participate in the life of their adopted country, free from fear and uncertainty.”

http://foreignaffairs.gov.ie/Press_Releases/20060123/1963.htm

[Lenny]

Irish government launches all-out effort for the McCain-Kennedy immigration amnesty

The Irish government has launched an all-out effort for the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill because it would grant amnesty to illegal aliens in the U.S. by converting them into legal guest workers. Funding the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) is part of Ireland’s pro-McCain-Kennedy campaign.

“The ILIR has been established at a particularly critical time in the U.S. as the legislative debate on this issue enters an important phase,” Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said in the January 23 release. “The ILIR is throwing

its weight behind the McCain/Kennedy immigration reform bill. … The positive initiative taken by Senators McCain and Kennedy in the U.S. Senate, mirrored by Representatives [Jim] Kolbe [R.-Ariz.], [Jeff] Flake [R.-Ariz.], and [Luis] Gutierrez [D.-Ill.] in the House of Representatives would enable undocumented Irish people to participate in the life of their adopted country, free from fear and uncertainty.”

In debates on the floor of the Irish legislature, the Irish government has made clear that this amnesty provision is why they especially like McCain-Kennedy. “We believe this [McCain-Kennedy] remains the most attractive approach for the undocumented Irish, as it includes provisions which would allow undocumented people to apply initially for Temporary Residence Status, but with a route to Permanent Residency,” Noel Treacy, Ireland’s minister of European Affairs said in Ireland’s legislature on February 15. “We know that Senators Kennedy and McCain and other like-minded senators remain convinced that proposals that require undocumented people to return home before applying for re-entry to the U.S. are not practical and will not encourage the undocumented to come out of the shadows.”

In a February 22 debate in the Irish legislature, Foreign Minister Ahern said he had encouraged the creation of the illegal-alien lobbying organization in the U.S. “Deputies can be assured that in all my meetings with U.S. contacts, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and key congressional figures, I made known the support of the government … for the approach favoured by Senators Kennedy and McCain,” said Ahern. “Their bill has also been strongly endorsed by the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, a group established in December to mobilize grassroots support within the Irish community in the U.S. for immigration reform. I welcome the establishment of this organization. I encouraged the formation of such an organization and recently approved a grant of €30,000 towards its operational expenses.”

The Irish Times, published in Dublin, trumpeted the fact that “illegals” had rallied on Capitol Hill with McCain, Clinton, Kennedy and Schumer. One Times story on March 9 was headlined: “‘Illegals’ lobby for right to stay in U.S.”

“Capitol Hill became a sea of green and white yesterday as thousands of undocumented Irish immigrants came out of the shadows for immigration reform,” said the Times. “They were rewarded with appearances from some of the most influential figures in Congress, including the two front-runners to succeed President Bush—Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton.”

Another item in the Irish Times, with the headline “Irish rally to press for legal status in America,” said: “More than 2,400 undocumented Irish immigrants and their supporters rallied in Washington yesterday in support of an immigration reform bill that would allow them to remain in the U.S. legally.” This report further noted that “Senators Kennedy, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer addressed the demonstrators, who wore white T-shirts with the slogan ‘Legalize the Irish.’”

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=13102