Everyone's From Belfast

Dermot Ahern met with Condie Rice yesterday, to do the emigrant dance. There are thousands of Irish in America, all as illegal as the Mexicans who get all the press, and Ireland's Foreign Affairs minister would like very much if America looked on the illegal Irish as so many....how about if we called them political asylum seekers?

Cubans can land on American soil and claim asylum, so why not the Irish? After all, as far as Mr. Ahern is concerned, most of them arrived in the U.S. during the Troubles, fleeing the madness and bloodshed and fear that gripped the six counties. Surely, Ms. Rice, an exception could be made for the Irish, considering the situation they were leaving? They aren't like the Hispanics at all, and why lump them together with a bunch of people who came to America for jobs alone?

What about the Irish from the Republic? Can't very well try to pretend that every illegal immigrant came from Belfast, and no one can make a claim that the government of the 1980's was repressive. Ask among my circle and they'll tell you that they left home in search of work, which was sorely lacking in Ireland at the time. Mr. Ahern has put a spin on this, however, and laid the blame for the high unemployment at the feet of The Troubles. All the bad publicity filtering out of Belfast and Omagh colored the image of the Republic, he says, and resulted in a paucity of investment and opportunity. So there you are. The former residents of the Republic of Ireland are seeking asylum as well, from the backwash of The Troubles.

Mr. Ahern understands the mania for security in this post-9/11 world, and he has assured Ms. Rice that any Irish coming across will be checked and vetted. And as for all those....many....maybe it's a round dozen....let's call it substantial numbers....at any rate, there's Americans who have trouble getting a visa into Ireland, and if you scratch my back, Ms. Rice, I'll scratch yours. Wouldn't that be a friendly way to deal with the problem?

In Congress, members with a few drops of Irish blood in their veins are hoping to cobble together an agreement for Irish illegals, bringing together a package of normalized status mixed in with the shadow of The Troubles and the potential benefits of future economic co-operation. The Mexican illegals, however, are on their own.