Increased immigration control in the US means that for those working in the country illegally, coming home for Christmas is not an option, writes Ian Kilroy in Boston
America celebrates the immigrant, especially the Irish immigrant. Liberty's flame bids him welcome. And why shouldn't it? It was the Irish who built the canals and the railways. It was the Irish who built the country's infrastructure and then, with every passing year, became more American than the original Yankees themselves.
In downtown Boston this legacy is celebrated by the Irish Famine Memorial. Cast in bronze, it depicts the story of the Irish in the US. They came off ships, starving and emaciated, then transformed themselves into confident upstanding Americans - or so the story goes. It is not by chance that the male figure in the Boston memorial bears a striking resemblance to JFK, that symbol of Irish success in the new land.
Under the weight of this mythology it is difficult to fathom just how much things have changed. As I write, six Irish nationals in Massachusetts alone sit incarcerated awaiting deportation. Some are republicans, detained on entering the US for suspected involvement with armed paramilitary groups, but others are simply the "undocumented", people caught working or resident in the US without the proper papers.
Everything has changed since September 11th, 2001. Now Irish illegals stay put, too afraid to come home for weddings and funerals, for births or for Christmas. Every time they leave they fear they will not get back in, that they will have to abandon the lives they have made for themselves in the US.
Paula Grenier, public affairs officer with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, makes it clear that undocumented people in the US are breaking the law.
"If they are in the US and they are working, and in the US illegally, they are breaking the law," she says. "There are ramifications if we come into contact with these individuals. They will be apprehended, arrested, charged and put into removal proceedings before an immigration judge. We encourage anyone who is working in the US to make sure that they have the proper documentation to do so."
Grenier says that coming forward and trying to regularise your situation isn't going to make a difference in terms of leniency. She recommends that anyone in illegal status should seek advice from an immigration lawyer. However, if someone has made their way into the US, they will have signed a green form on entering the country waiving all rights to a hearing before a judge. A lawyer will be of little use. This is the little green form we all have to sign when we enter the US for holidays. If, as many Irish people do, somebody stays on after the permitted 90-day period, then they will have signed away their right to a hearing and be subject to immediate deportation.
Grenier says that there are between eight and 10 million people in the US in this kind of illegal, undocumented position. Neither the US authorities nor the Irish Embassy in Washington have any idea how many Irish illegals there are in the US; indeed, the Irish Consulate in Boston was unwilling to discuss Irish citizens in this predicament at all.
However, according to Sheila Gleeson, director of immigration services at the Irish Immigration Centre in Boston, there are at least several thousand undocumented Irish in the Boston area alone.
"It's hard to put a figure on it, but there certainly are thousands just in Massachusetts," she says. "But less and less people are coming since September 11th. People have heard that it's more difficult to live here [as an illegal immigrant\] now, and the authorities are being more zealous in enforcement."
Gleeson says there has been a marked shift in atmosphere, in how immigrants are seen in the US. She says she has noticed the emergence of a distinctly anti-immigrant feel to public discourse. This she puts down to the fear abroad since 9/11, and she has countless stories of Irish people running into difficulty.
"We had a 60-year-old woman that had her green card taken from her," says Gleeson. "She'd lived here for 40 years as a green-card holder. Her husband was a US citizen, all her kids were US citizens, all her grandchildren were US citizens. They questioned her for hours on her own, they wouldn't even let her husband in the room. She was terrified. In years gone by they would never have done that."
Christina, from Co Galway, agrees with Gleeson that September 11th has made things a whole lot harder for Irish illegals in the US. Christina, who has worked without a visa in the New York fashion industry for the past eight years, says that she won't be going home for Christmas because of the fear of not being re-admitted.
"It gets a lot more difficult with each passing year," she says. "As I get older and my parents get older, as my nieces grow up, I definitely feel that I miss out on a lot, on family. It's that you don't have the freedom to come and go as you please."
Christina says that there are a lot of emotions involved in not being able to go home. There's guilt at not visiting ageing parents, there's sadness at not being able to see old friends.
"But at the end of the day it's my decision to stay here," she says.
Mike, from Bantry in Co Cork, is in a similar position to Christina. He has worked in the construction industry in Boston for the past six years, but is in a worse situation, in that, unlike Christina, he has no social security number. That means he cannot get a driver's licence, which is the principal form of identification in the US, and useful for everything from getting into bars to opening a bank account. It seriously inhibits what he is able to do.
"The thing is I can get a tax identification number as an illegal which allows me to pay tax," says Mike. "But if I'm laid off for the winter or need some benefit I can't get it as an illegal. But I pay my taxes anyhow, hoping that it'll stand by me in the case of an amnesty."
So, Mike and those like him can contribute to the public coffers, but can never benefit from their contributions. And, according to Sheila Gleeson, they contribute a lot.
"Immigrants contribute a significant amount," she says. "Billions of dollars, money they can never collect on if they don't get legal status. They contribute more than they take from the system. You see, they're not eligible for benefits of any kind and they just wouldn't survive unless they were working, and there's a demand for their labour."
Mike concurs that there is a need for immigrant labour in the US, and that the wider society often turns a blind eye to illegals.
"But sometimes," says Mike, "I think the American people don't realise what all these people are doing. They're cleaning their houses, building their buildings, making their beds. They're doing the jobs Americans don't want to do."
And with no amnesty for undocumented workers on the horizon, they will continue to do that work illegally, breaking the law and daily facing the prospect of deportation.
Christina and Mike, and thousands of other Irish illegals like them, will be staying in the US this Christmas, and probably next Christmas too, building a life for themselves in a country from which they could be ejected at any moment, hoping that Irish officials and political representatives will push for an amnesty that they fear will never come.