LEGISLATION TO ease immigration into the United States could be passed by the US Senate before the summer break, a leading US politician said yesterday in Dublin, though it would then face a battle to gain the support of a majority of the US House of Representatives.
However, congresswoman Nydia Velazquez from New York, a leading figure on immigration in Washington, said Ireland had no chance of reaching a bilateral deal with the United States to deal with undocumented Irish living illegally there.
US president Barack Obama made it clear in Washington in recent days during meetings with congressional leaders that he wants comprehensive immigration reform – which has been tried before and failed.
US senator Chuck Schumer (New York) is bringing legislation to the Senate by the end of July, said Ms Velazquez, one of a number of members of Congress in Ireland this week.
“It is important because the speaker of the house has made it clear that she wants the Senate to pass the legislation first and then the house will take it,” she told The Irish Times.
“The issue is whether or not we will be able to get it done in the Senate in time. We are working very hard on that,” she said, following a meeting in Leinster House with Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue.
A US-Irish immigration deal, which had been sought by some Irish-Americans, was not possible. “No, because we are clear that there has to be a comprehensive legislation. It will address the issues for Ireland.”
Mr Obama has recently backed the passage of comprehensive immigration legislation by the end of this year or next – whereas, up to now, he had been careful not to put a timescale on his ambitions.
However, Mr Obama is under pressure from latino political leaders and others concerned about immigration, many of whom supported his bid for the White House against Republican John McCain.
In Washington last week, the president said that “after all the overheated rhetoric and the occasional demagoguery on all sides around this issue, we’ve got a responsible set of leaders sitting around the table who want to actively get something done and not put it off until a year, two years, three years, five years from now, but to start working on this thing right now.”
The Friends of Ireland US congressional group currently in Ireland has been in Ireland since the weekend. On Monday the group met Taoiseach Brian Cowen, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan and other senior figures.
Congressman Richie Neal, who is leading the delegation, said he understood “the anguish” felt by many of those who left Ireland to go to the United States in the early 1980s without papers and who now cannot return, even for the burial of their parents.
“If those laws were in place my grandparents would not been able to come to the US. It is a complex issue, however,” he said, at a Leinster House press conference alongside Mr O’Donoghue.
Questioned about legislation that could affect US businesses operating in Ireland, Mr Neal said those who believed that “the shutters are coming down in the US” were wrong.
He said Ireland had a transparent corporate tax regime and was not “the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands”. Mr Neal sits on the house committee that is currently examining US business tax law.
The Friends of Ireland group, chaired by Mr Neal, has long promoted Irish interests in the US House of Representatives and helps to foster trade and cultural links between Ireland and the US.
Besides focusing on the undocumented Irish, the group has also held talks about Ireland-US relations, the world financial crisis, the International Fund for Ireland and the Northern Ireland peace agreement.
