Irish Official Wants Iowa to Ease Immigration Restrictions

Recommend...del.icio.us Digg it Furl Netvouz Netscape Newsvine reddit Yahoo MyWeb March 14th, 2006 at 09:25pm Chase Martyn

I don’t know why an Irish person would come to Iowa to celebrate St. Patrick’s day, but apparently it’s common for Irish people to go abroad on the holiday. (Maybe they think it’s funny to watch people like us pretend to be Irish for a day while we pinch each other?) Either way, a member of Irish Parliament addressed the Iowa Legislature this morning on behalf of what he estimates to be 50,000 illegal Irish immigrants in the United States, according to Radio Iowa:

“Experts estimate there are as many as 11 million people are living illegally in the U.S., and Finucane says the plight of those 50-thousand Irish citizens likely cannot be considered separately from the rest. “I do recognize you have problems in relation to immigrants because possibly cannot adopt an ala carte approach in treating the Irish exclusively no matter how much you respect what we have done for America in the past,” Finucane says.

But then it looks like he kind of does ask for special treatment.  It isn’t obvious, but it’s a little suspicious, given the previous quote:

Finucane hails the “close links” between Ireland and America. “America was kind to Ireland in difficult times with immigration in the 18th century, with immigration in the 19th century and with immigration in the 20th century,” Finucane says. There are now about 100-thousand U.S. citizens living in Ireland and Finucane describes Ireland’s immigration policy as an “open door.”

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Entry Filed under: Iowa Legislature, Events

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