Irish Immigration Reform Movement

Statement on The Passage of HR 4293

The Irish Immigration Reform Movement (IIRM) was established on May 20, 1987 in response to the near crisis situation that was developing for a new generation of Irish immigrants in the United States in the early 1980's. Waves of Irish immigrants began to settle in traditional neighborhoods across the nation, but unlike their predecessors, they were virtually all without legal status.

The highly successful lobbying efforts of the IIRM resulted in the Donnelly, Morrison and Schumer lottery visas and provided enormous relief to many undocumented Irish. Some of those continue to thrive in the U.S., while many more have returned home to a more welcoming economy.

Given the harsh anti-immigrant measures passed by Congress in the last few years the IIRM found that the burden on today's immigrants is reaching a new level of crisis. Many are younger, and for whatever reason, less skilled and less educated than their 1980's counterparts. Moreover, the traditional "cash under the table" economies of the construction and service trades are more and more closed to them, as employers face heavier sanctions for employing "illegals", which the Immigration services (I.N.S.) have more resources to investigate, arrest and deport them.

With this in mind the IIRM formulated a proposal that was first presented in New York to a visiting Irish interparliamentary delegation, who brought the proposal to Washington. Friends of Ireland chairman, Rep. Jim Walsh, introduced legislation in the House of Representatives, with Senator Alphonse D'Amato (New York) introducing a companion bill in the Senate. The Northern Ireland Visas for Peace and Reconciliation was signed into law by President Clinton on Friday, October 27, 1998.

This act allows 4000 Irish immigrants per year the benefit of temporary working papers. It also allows those most in need of it, a break from the climate of sectarianism and fear which has permeated their lives for too long. The program seeks to bring young adults and the long-term unemployed from disadvantaged areas in Northern Ireland and the Republic to acquire much needed job-skills in a multicultural U.S. workplace. As this is a nonimmigrant temporary program, those migrants can then go home with the skills and experience gathered here and help regenerate their own local economies.

The IIRM will continue to monitor legislative developments and agitate for change in the current immigration laws until Ireland received its fair share of the immigration pie and until every Irish immigrant can find peace and prosperity in his or her adopted homeland.