"Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery...."(Jack Paar 1918-2004)

"There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children; unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to ‘Americanize’ him” – Charles Horton Cooley 1864-1929 – American sociologist

I recently sat down to see a movie that I had eagerly anticipated watching for quite a while called “The Good Shepherd”. Directed by one of my favorite actors, Robert De Niro; who also plays a small but significant part in the film, the storyline is based around the formation in the early 1940’s of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. A wartime intelligence and counter intelligence agency, it was the predecessor to the infamous CI.A. Late on in the film there is a scene between the chief character played by Matt Damon, and Joe Pesci, who plays famous crime boss Joseph Palmi. A discussion ensues where both men are discussing the fact that America is a melting pot of mixed nationalities and cultures, a nation essentially of immigrants.

Pesci speaks about many of the chief immigrant nationalities in America and what it is that is important and dear to each of their cultures. For example, and to paraphrase Pesci, the Italians have family and the Church, the Irish have the homeland and the Jews have their tradition. Pesci then turns to Damon and asks him what Americans have, to which he responds that Americans have America and that “…you are all just visiting”, a reference to the dozens of immigrant cultures represented in American society.

This comment resonated with me at the time because it summed up in one sentence the way I am sure many Americans feel about the level of immigration into their country. While the issue of immigration, illegal or otherwise, has been an ongoing topic of debate in this country for decades; it periodically raises its head every 10 or 20 years or so and consumes the national debate almost to saturation point.

Over twenty years ago, Ronald Reagan granted what was essentially amnesty to the illegal immigrant population of the United States, wiping clean the slate and allowing hard working immigrants to come out of the woodwork and the shadows and become legitimate. The Morrison and Donnelly visa lotteries helped the Irish, both here in the U.S. and in Ireland, to fully participate in the American dream. I have yet to meet an Irish person here in the United States who has failed to prosper. For sure, many still miss home and because of their still as yet unresolved status can’t return home, they still thrive and have a reasonable to good standard of living. Here in San Francisco, which became a haven for Irish people in the 1990’s after the city declared itself a city of sanctuary for illegal immigrants in 1989, there is a thriving Irish sub culture where people from home come together to socialize, participate in sport and network at business events where we give each other business, all while fully participating in the American way of life.

In the last couple of years, the issue of immigration has monopolized the national agenda here. In the wake of 9/11 and the need to secure America’s borders against potential terrorist attacks, many see the wave of ongoing illegal immigration as a security threat, not to mention the so called financial drain on the existing American middle class. Here in California the issue is very real, what with the consistent flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries that come into the United States through the Mexican border. It is now estimated that there is somewhere in the region of between 12 and 20 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, 6 million of which live in California.

While illegal immigrants come from many nations, and included in that is a healthy number of Irish, it is fair to say that the immigration debate centers on the Latino and South East Asian communities. The fact that a huge percentage of Mexican and/or Asian immigrants don’t speak English and are slow to embrace the concept of learning English and fully immersing themselves in the American way of life, has not helped their cause. In addition, the continued hemorrhaging of people across the U.S. southern border has given rise to huge concern over national security.

Earlier this summer, the outlook was reasonably good for the passage of the Kennedy/Kyl Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007. With the backing of President Bush, this new bill proposed creating a new classification of visa, entitled a “Z” visa, which would legitimize anyone that had entered the United States illegally prior to January 1st 2007, subject to them paying a $5,000 fine and agreeing to return to their homeland (and return) sometime in the next 8 years. The debate was furious, the detractors of the bill considering it to be blatant amnesty, its supporters calling it a mechanism to legitimize millions of workers. After weeks of debate in congress and a number of votes, the bill was defeated. The defeat was a crushing blow to the domestic agenda of President Bush and in particular to the hopes of millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S.

I am one of the lucky ones. I married an American citizen this year and while my naturalization process involved a lot of paperwork, a couple of nervous interviews, and a few thousand dollars (hey, it’s still America and capitalism lives!) my green card was approved with little fuss in July this year. While I was able to celebrate, I know that there are many Irish here in San Francisco, including a number of Ennis people, who will be bitterly disappointed that the immigration bill didn’t pass congress. Political commentators predict that because the first presidential primaries are due to be held next January, and 2008 being a Presidential election year, the immigration initiative is dead at least until the new President, hopefully a Democrat; is inaugurated in January 2009. It then remains to be seen how high a priority the immigration issue will be for the 44th President.