No Time for Going Home

THE lesson of the recent round of raids on Irish people is that, with a possible immigration bill in the offing, secret trips to Ireland are a bad idea at this point.

There appears to be a difference in the outlook of the U.S. immigration about those who have entered the country legally and remain and those who enter the country illegally after incurring the three or 10-year ban to returning.

It would be foolhardy given the recent arrests for anyone to risk legal status and a chance at a future green card by returning home at this point. Until matters in Congress are clear, the undocumented should stay put.

The facts are that there is a slightly better than 50/50 chance of an immigration bill that would cover thousands of Irish here undocumented before the end of the year. Such a bill would end the nightmare for these people forever, and it is surely worth waiting to see if it occurs.

There is mounting confidence in the Senate that a bill closely resembling the Hagel/Martinez compromise, called after the Republican senators from Nebraska and Florida respectively, will be passed.

For Irish who have been here for more than five years especially, the passage of that bill if it is retained through the negotiations with the House, would be a priceless dividend and a reward for all the time spent building their lives in the U.S.

The most important aspect is that the fate of the bill in the Senate will be known in the next few weeks, something that should focus the mind of everyone involved in this issue.

Earlier Buffalo Arrest the Key

IT is extraordinary that no news of the arrest of the Buffalo bar owner, Bridget Campbell, who likely sparked the current smuggling investigation, seemed to reach the Irish community anywhere after it happened. Campbell admitted back in March she had smuggled 30 Irish across the border and she agreed to a plea bargain with prosecutors.

The arrests were announced on March 16, right at the heart of the St. Patrick’s season which is probably why they went relatively unnoticed. If they had been noticed it is very likely they would have acted as a tip-off to many who had used the Canadian route to come in.

Campbell and two others will be sentenced in June but we may never know what names she turned over to the Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials.

It certainly seems that her arrest may well have been the catalyst for last week’s raids. Her connections are clear. The Boston and Philadelphia people arrested apparently came in through her ring. Her sentencing in June should be interesting.

Aikins Set for Irish Move

IN the wake of the most successful American Ireland Fund dinner in New York ever, AIF Chief Executive Kingsley Aikins has told his board that he will be operating from Ireland and not Boston in the near future.

Under Aikins the AIF has had an incredible growth and is now in 11 countries throughout the world.

It makes perfect sense, too, to operate the world headquarters out of Ireland given the phenomenal growth in the Irish economy there and the huge new interest in philanthropy.

In the meantime, though, America will be well taken care off with full time offices in New York where Kieran McLoughlin has just run an amazingly successful dinner Boston and San Francisco.

Aikins will be missed in Boston, but as he has pointed out, he has spent the majority of the past few years traveling hither and yon building up the AIF so his precise home location was never that important.

North Not Important?

IS Northern Ireland important to the Bush administration or could they care less?

According to a new work it is likely the latter. Con Coughlin, former executive editor of the Sunday Telegraph in London, has written a new book entitled American Ally, Tony Blair and the War on Terror.

In it he writes, “Bush’s advisors wanted the new administration only to pursue policies that were directly in America’s interest … many of the issues that had absorbed the Clinton presidency, such as the Middle East and Northern Ireland, were downgraded.

“Washington privately informed Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, that they had little interest in continuing U.S. involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process, which they considered an exclusively British affair.”

That seems a bit unfair. After all, Bush did appoint Richard Haass and Mitchell Reiss two special envoys to Northern Ireland and even visited there himself.

However, there is little doubt that, as recent events have unfolded in Iraq and elsewhere, that Ireland has fallen far down the totem pole. Not surprising really.

Will Blair Survive?

SPEAKING of Blair, there is no doubt that he is in desperate straits with his leadership of the Labor Party under strong pressure after disastrous local election results last week.

The British press is baying for his blood as are many of his own backbenchers who are calling for Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the Exchequer, to be promoted.

All of which is not good news for the Northern Irish peace process. Blair still has a major role to play in the final chapter of trying to bring back the Executive there.

Were he to go before November the hands of the two governments, Irish and British, would be weakened considerably as he knows the issue backwards unlike Brown who has shown little interest. However, given the level of hostility to Blair that now seems possible.