Stop McCain/Kennedy

DO you people know you are helping to destroy the county you claim to love? This McCain/ Kennedy bill will over time allow half of Mexico’s population to live in the U.S.

Now if you don’t know, Mexico at one time owned the U.S. southwest, including California and Texas. Mexicans feel the U.S. stole this territory, and feel fully justified in taking as much as they can from Americans. Some Mexicans even want to send all whites back to Europe.

The McCain/Kennedy bill will make Mexicans the majority in states like California and Texas again, and I have no doubt they will do everything they can, like job discrimination and higher property taxes, to get whites to leave these states. The Mexicans in California are already doing this to some extent.

I am an Irish American. One of my ancestors fought in the Mexican-American War.

His descendents and myself benefited from that sacrifice by making good lives for ourselves in California. Now Irish like you are working to help Mexicans take that life away!

Did you know that legal Irish immigration would be higher except for all the amnesties that have given green cards to so many Mexicans? All these amnestied Mexicans crowd everyone else out of the legal immigration system, including Irish.

This web site: www.fairimmigration.com is for Vietnamese, but the same pretty much holds true for Irish also.

Instead of supporting the McCain/Kennedy bill, what you need to do is lobby for no amnesty, enforcement of the immigration laws, and no exceptions to the per-country limit which right now only benefit Mexicans and hurts everyone else.

I know this means many undocumented Irish would have to return to Ireland in order to apply to enter the U.S. legally, but this way you will be coming back to a much better America.

The alternative you currently support could result in another Civil War. Myself and many other Americans are making preparations for one, because we know this McCain/Kennedy bill will result in a big loss in our prosperity and rights. My ancestors in this country fought against dictators, fascism and communism, and I will do the same.

Some 80% of Americans oppose amnesty for illegal aliens, so if it happens it means we no longer live in a democracy. Just like the first American Revolution, we will have another one to get our freedom and liberty back.

If you don’t want to live in a country that is having a Civil War, and where whites are a discriminated against minority, I strongly suggest you rethink your support for the McCain/Kennedy bill.

Timothy Taylor
California

Seeking Relatives

I AM trying to trace my relatives. Margaret O’Connell emigrated from Ballingarry, Thurles, Co. Tipperary to the U.S. around the mid-1920s. She married a Mr. Miller. They had a family.

Her son’s name was Frank Miller, my first cousin. He was in the U.S. Air Force and I think he served overseas at one time in Germany.

The family lived at 98 Summit Avenue in Neptune City, New Jersey in 1957. Any information please send to me at Ballycullane, Portarlington, Co. Laois, Ireland.

Michael McEvoy
Laois, Ireland

Bush Favors Paisley

I AM on record many times for praising the good work of Mitchell Reiss, special envoy for Northern Ireland.

But, at the same time, I have constantly tried to explain to him that the one thing Catholics in Northern Ireland cannot stand about the way officialdom treats them is “the double standard”(real or perceived). That double standard also, of course, naturally offends Irish-Americans.

Now, however, I am forced to accept that my humble efforts have singularly failed, as the Bush administration increasingly appears tone deaf on this matter.

President Bush embraces (no visa restrictions) Ian Paisley, who has spent 60 years of his 80-year life trying to keep Catholics at the back of the bus, and the last 10 years trying to wreck the Irish peace-process and the Good Friday Agreement.

Yet President Bush refuses to embrace (visa restrictions) Gerry Adams, who more than any other person has made the Irish peace process and the Good Friday Agreement possible!

Surely Reiss should have foreseen what was wrong with that picture? Surely political correctness alone (whether one agrees or disagrees with that current coin of the realm) should have seen what a PR disaster that would be for President Bush.

Therefore the question ineluctably arises, “Why is President Bush so desensitized on the Irish Catholic issue?” Didn’t his famous visit to Bob Jones University, Dr. Paisley’s main American sponsor, teach him anything?

Or has the extreme fundamentalist wing of the U.S. Republican Party so captured the president’s ear that he actually wants to be seen as endorsing Paisley’s anti-Catholicism?

This, of course, would not have become an issue if the president were seen to be even-handed, embracing equally all the political parties in Northern Ireland. It has been forced upon us as an issue by the president’s perceived double standard and apparent overt bias.

Guided by Reiss, the Bush administration has put restrictions on Adams’ visa because it is trying to force (blackmail?) Sinn Fein into endorsing the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Such tactics, it seems to me, will not only be ineffective, but they also trivialize the whole vitally important issue of creating an acceptable police for Northern Ireland.

I am not advocating that Dr. Paisley be shunned (indeed I have “embraced” him myself). I am advocating that the Bush administration shuns the double standard and returns to being an honest broker in the Irish peace process.

Is that too much for Irish Americans to expect as we approach St. Patrick’s Day?

Father Sean McManus
President, Irish
National Caucus

Congress Must Respond

I WAS in attendance at the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) meeting at St. Mary’s in Queens and heard the numerous speakers, including Senator Chuck Schumer.

I was inspired by the outpouring of energy from the attendees. It was refreshing to see such an incredible turnout. I imagine most of them were undocumented.

As an immigrant here since 1989 and again 1993, I identify with the frustrations that many of my fellow countrymen and women have to endure. However, the pressure must be incessantly applied to those who represent us in Congress and the Senate if progress is to be made on this important issue.

Ciaran Staunton was a real inspiration and expressed his heartfelt ideas with both passion and humor. He was in my view a great voice for the people. And Niall O’Dowd made an excellent emcee.

Indeed, from my vantage point there were visibly inspired people all around, some even shedding tears of recognition having heard the struggles of earlier immigration groups.

The key now in the 2000s is that the Irish government is assisting in very innovative ways and even RTE was present at the event.

I just finished reading Pete Hamill’s Forever, and I can tell you we Irish deserve FULL immigration rights in this country. We who have built bridges, skyscrapers, roads, political machinery, NYPD, NYFD, all of these important institutions are worthy of full immigration status and any politician who snubs us at this critical time should be run out of the White House/Congress/Senate, end of story, simple as that.

As Mr. Staunton said, “We’re not going to pull the ladder up on our fellow Irish men.” Go n-eiri an bothar linn go leir.

Antoin O’Maille
New York, New York