Irish immigrants press for visa reform

WASHINGTON -- Capitol Hill turned green yesterday as more than 2,400 Irish-American immigrants, including about 1,000 from the Boston area, stormed the halls of Congress and lent their voices to the rollicking debate over the nation's immigration laws.

In distinctive white-and-green T-shirts, the immigrants -- most of them undocumented, according to event organizers -- fanned out in teams of 30 to knock on doors throughout the Capitol complex. They pressed senators and House members to help them earn legal status.

One group camped outside the hearing room in which the Senate Judiciary Committee was considering an overhaul to the nation's immigration laws. Later, they planted an Irish flag in the middle of a Holiday Inn ballroom, and gave raucous ovations to a procession of politicians who bragged about their Irish heritage.

''If there was any trouble at all with Irish immigration in 1848, my great-great-grandparents never would have gotten to arrive in Boston, Massachusetts," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. ''Thank God they did, and we're going to do the same for each and every one of you."

Of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, just 20,000 to 50,000 are from Ireland. But Irish leaders and lawmakers hope that those immigrants, and the nation's 40 million Americans of Irish descent, can play an outsize role in lobbying on behalf of the issue.

That involvement reflects lawmakers' attempts to reframe the immigration debate at a critical time. Though the issue has been broadly perceived as one mainly affecting Hispanic immigrants who enter the country via the porous border with Mexico, the Irish community wants to remind lawmakers that the national economy also depends on the large number of undocumented Irish immigrants who fill jobs in Boston and cities across the country.

The jockeying comes as some in Congress want to crack down on illegal immigration without providing alternatives to foster legal immigration.

''People aren't going to wait to pack their bags" if a policy like that were adopted, said Edmund Carr, an organizer of yesterday's lobbying push. ''They'll be on the next planes from Logan Airport." Carr, a 30-year-old tile layer from Holbrook, said he moved from Ireland in 1998 but became a legal US resident only when he married an American woman last year. He helped organize the busloads of Irish immigrants who came to Washington from meeting points in Brighton and Dorchester on Tuesday.

''Without the Irish, the bars in Boston are going to have to sell out and change their names," he said.

This week, senators began writing a bill that would beef up border enforcement and create new legal channels for immigrants to work in the United States. The latest draft would allow undocumented immigrants who come forward to stay in the United States for as long as they have jobs, but would not provide them a ready path to become citizens.

Many immigrant groups favor a proposal that would give undocumented immigrants a new way to obtain legal status on a permanent basis. Under that proposal, crafted by Kennedy and Arizona Senator John McCain, a Republican, undocumented immigrants who pay back taxes and $2,000 in fines could get a green card after six years of good behavior, during which time they could work legally in the United States under a special visa.

The concept is so intriguing to many Irish that Ireland's government has taken the unusual step of endorsing the proposal, in part because it would allow undocumented immigrants to visit family and friends back home in Ireland.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland plans to lobby for the Kennedy-McCain proposal in his meetings with President Bush and top congressional leaders next week, said Joe Hackett, a spokesman for the Irish Embassy in Washington.

''The government has thrown its full weight behind the Kennedy-McCain proposal," Hackett said. ''Because of immigration law, the people who are here are not able to travel back and forth for family events and weddings. This provides the undocumenteds who are here a path to permanent residency, without them having to leave the country."

Yet any proposal that involves leniency or special treatment for undocumented immigrants is controversial. Critics of illegal immigration argue that any ''amnesty" plan essentially rewards people for entering the country illegally or staying beyond the limits of their visas.

On Tuesday, a far larger rally in Washington featured thousands of immigrants of Hispanic descent.