The Re-Greening of America

By Ed Magnuson

In scores of U.S. cities this week, Americans of Irish descent will celebrate St. Patrick's Day by donning green hats, marching through the streets shouting "Erin go bragh!" and proudly proclaiming their Irishness to anyone who will listen. Yet as many as 100,000 natives of Ireland, newly arrived in the U.S., will hesitate to join the parades. They live in the fearful shadow world of the illegal alien.

Like their more numerous Hispanic and Asian counterparts, the undocumented "new Irish" switch jobs often, worry about the costs of sickness without Medicaid, and can do little but gnash their teeth when family crises occur in their homeland, because to leave the U.S. might mean never to return. "You often find them trying to put on New York accents while they serve you in a restaurant, just so they can meld into the background and not be found out," says Ray O'Hanlon, the national editor of the New York City-based Irish Echo newspaper. "This is rather sad."

But unlike the flood of Third World immigrants, the Irish come with advantages: white skin, good education, a knowledge of the language and a talent for politics that would make Boston's legendary Mayor James Michael Curley beam with pride. On the East Coast, they have revitalized neighborhoods deserted by their American cousins. Local shops sell everything from soda bread to Irish candies and bacon. The bleachers are filled for Irish football at Gaelic Park in the Bronx and Dilboy Field near Boston. In New York's Irish neighborhoods, pubs are packed on weekends. "At home in County Offaly, the bars are empty," says Mary Cahill, 26, who has been in America two years. "Most of the young people are in the U.S., Britain or Australia."

The surge of new arrivals began in 1982, propelled by a debt-plagued Irish economy in which unemployment soared to almost 19% last year, sometimes reaching twice that for young people under 25. Even Ireland's Prime Minister Charles Haughey seemed to encourage the exodus.

Most of the Irish arriving in the U.S. have simply stayed on once their six- month tourist or work visas expired. They insist they are in America by stealth because there was no way for them to gain legal entry. The newcomers argue that the U.S. immigration act of 1965 discriminated against the Irish and other Europeans by giving preference to applicants who had family members legally in the U.S. Since Europeans had not been moving in large numbers to America for many years, they were all but locked out. The non-Europeans, mostly Asians and Latin Americans, used the family preference to create a relative-to-relative chain that accounts for more than 90% of the annual inflow of 600,000 immigrants. In 1987, for example, 601,516 people were granted permanent U.S. residence; only 3,060 of them were Irish.

The hard-fought 1986 immigration reform also bypassed the Irish aliens. Aimed mostly at the U.S. southern border, it granted amnesty to foreigners who could show they were in the U.S. before 1982. That was just before the latest Irish influx began, cutting off these new arrivals.

These perceived injustices have unified Irish Americans, both legal and alien, in a way seldom seen in the often contentious community. In New York this week a bishop from Ireland will lead a Mass of Hope in St. Patrick's Cathedral for the new immigrants. An Irish Immigration Reform Movement has created chapters in more than a dozen cities to seek changes in U.S. immigration laws, including the right of the illegals to seek permanent residency. It employs a full-time lobbyist in Washington.

When the Irish get together, many U.S. politicians listen. Boston's Mayor Raymond Flynn last year announced that "the welcome mat is out" for Irish aliens, and has created an office to provide immigrants with legal aid. The administration of New York Mayor Ed Koch declared that the Irish aliens "have nothing to fear in utilizing fully the services" of the city. New York even granted $30,000 to help finance a counseling hot line for Irish immigrants.

At the federal level, the Irish lobby won a fight in 1987 to create 10,000 special visas for the 36 countries that the 1965 act treated unfairly. Awarded in a lottery that gave priority to those who applied first, 40% of the visas went to the Irish, who had been closely tracking the process. Last year Congress decided to make an additional 30,000 of these lottery visas available in the next two years, using leftover applications from the first drawing. Since the Irish sent in a disproportionate number of entries, they are expected to do well again. Yet another lottery for 20,000 visas will be held later this year, drawing from new applicants.

Still struggling with the touchy question of who should be admitted to the U.S., Congress will consider a bill this year under which 120,000 of the annual allotted visas would be linked to such considerations as education, profession, work experience and English-language capability. Although the Irish reform group is ardently supporting it, the bill has some opponents, who claim it is elitist. The Statue of Liberty, notes Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, does not say, "Send us your upwardly mobile." On the other hand, argues Pat Hurley, co-founder of the Irish Reform Movement, "the attributes that we have -- education, skills and ability to communicate well -- are what America wants." To say nothing of the political ties.

With reporting by Priscilla Painton/New York