Ireland considering immigration deal with U.S

[catabryna]

"DUBLIN (Reuters) - Thousands of Irish citizens living unlawfully in the United States could be legalised in return for more work permits for U.S. citizens lured to Ireland by its thriving economy, an Irish minister said on Wednesday.

"There is clear evidence to support the establishment of some form of bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Irish governments," Labour Minister Tony Killeen said in a statement after he returned from a trip to New York.

Killeen said that, while 30,000 to 40,000 illegal Irish immigrants were living in the United States, two centuries of mass emigration to the United States from Ireland because of famine and unemployment was clearly now at an end."

More: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-10-25T105737Z_01_L25252495_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRELAND-USA-IMMIGRATION.xml&WTmodLoc=HP-C3-World-4

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Oh..

I thought they meant a deal where Americans could emigrate to Ireland :-)

[Orrin_73]

2. So Ire-atlan is going to be real afterall

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[hlthe2b]

7. I don't follow... n/t

[Orrin_73]

11. Ire-atlan = Irish land in america Aztlan = mexican land in america

[hlthe2b]

14. thx.... 'got ya...

[catabryna]

3. This last paragraph caught my attention...

"...Ireland would also try to lure Irish and U.S. citizens back to Ireland where the population is now back above 4 million, having slumped to a 120-year low of 2.8 million in the 1960s."

I know that I'd pack up my kiddo and go in a heartbeat!

[hlthe2b]

6. SO, can 3rd generation try to document and come back?

My dear grandmother would never talk about it. Like many immigrants, she was "AMERICAN" and nothing else mattered. But, I know the family name and could research... Seriously!

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Yes, you can apply to Ireland based on your family's roots there.

[catabryna]

10. I've dreamed of jumping over the pond...

for the last 20 years. If this is viable, it is something I'd like to try to do. Would be a 4th generation Irish-American here (3/4 worth, anyway), but I do have the paper to back it up.

PS: Love your sig. line. My history teacher in high school told our class at the beginning of the year that if we remembered that quote at the end of the year it would help our grade. Good to his word, he turned my A into an A+.

[hlthe2b]

13. Kudos to your teacher....

And, yes, I'd probably have to turn to the comprehensive Mormon ancestry database (includes literally EVERYONE, regardless of LDS ties) to document my own mixed heritage... The way things look, it may well be worth the time...

[Xithras]

18. 4th generation doesn't qualify for citizenship.

Sorry, but foreign born citizenship only extends to the 3rd generation.

http://www.irelandemb.org/fbr.html

In order to qualify for Irish citizenship, one of your grandparents must have been born in Ireland.

[catabryna]

20. Ah well...

bummer, though!

[Xithras]

17. Yes, but only to the third generation.

According to one part of Irish law, anybody born in Ireland is an Irish citizen. Also, anybody born outside of Ireland who's parents are citizens do themselves get citizenship.

So: If your grandparents were born in Ireland, they're citizens. Because your parent is the child of citizens, he or she gets automatically gets citizenship as a foreign born person of Irish descent. Because your parent is technically an Irish citizen, you can register your birth and gain citizenship yourself.

Here's the catch. If you have kids born in the US, they may not get citizenship. I had a co-worker with dual Irish/American citizenship a few years ago who wanted to move back there. He didn't when he discovered that his 3rd generation citizenship didn't extend to either his wife (not Irish) or his American born children (4th generation and didn't qualify). He didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting visas for his own children.

[Megahurtz]

28. Did you know that

if you have an Irish parent or grandparent (I forget which, I'd have to look it up)
that you can legally obtain an Irish Passport?

I'd check that one out if I were you!;)

[slaveplanet]

22. 4 million eh...

So, then by US census estimates, America is absorbing the equivilant of 3x Ireland's entire population in illegal aliens alone. I wonder if the illegals residing in the US bring with them, 3x Ireland's GDP?

[hlthe2b]

4. well, they do mention more work permits for Americans...

[Megahurtz]

27. Well they DID say

"in return for more work permits for U.S. citizens".:)

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I knew that was coming.

So many people assume that the only major source of illegal aliens is Mexico, but Ireland has had a backdoor into the U.S. for decades. Actually, I think it was Biden who brought it to my attention.

[Bacchus39]

9. Irish get work permits and then overstay

not to mention they can travel freely on a tourist visa since they are one of the countries that are part of the visa waiver program. I recall many go to Delaware (Biden's state) to work during the summer months and end up staying.

I wouldn't call Ireland a comparable source of illegal aliens as Mexico though.

[pinerow]

12. The total number may not be (comparable source of illegals), but i would

be willing to bet that on a per capita basis the numbers may not be all that different...any resident statisticians feel free to take up the challenge...:toast:

[0007]

16. The Irish will do the jobs that Mexicans won't take.

[pinerow]

21. Now, thats funny....!!!

:rofl:

[Megahurtz]

30. Hahahaha!

:D

[AnneD]

32. No...

one of the best lines about the Irish came from the movie 'The Comittments' (which I highly recommend). The band leader was trying to get his Irish singer to sing blues/soul songs. They were arguing about how they couldn't do soul and the leader said "The Irish are the blacks of Europe. Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And North Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin! Now say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud!"

I don't think I ever fully recovered from that line :rofl:

[amandabeech]

34. Terrific movie!

One of my all time favorites. And the "I'm black and I'm proud" was priceless.

On edit: I love the Wilson Picket version of "Mustang Sally" and the Rev. Al Green's "Take It to the River," but whenever I hear those songs, I always see the Commitments in my mind.

[AnneD]

35. Funny that you can see a movie one time

and a part of it will stick with you for years.

[amandabeech]

37. Yes it is.

Although I've seen this movie more than once on cable.

When I saw it in the theater, I embarrassed my friends by laughing so hard.

[Gormy Cuss]

25. Interesting question

Using the numbers in the article, with the high end of illegal immigrants from Ireland at 40,000 and the population of Ireland at 4 million, that's the equivalent of an additional 1% of the population living illegally in the U.S.

The best estimate of the number of undocumented Mexican nationals comes from the Pew Hispanic Center and their 2004 estimate was 5.9 million. I don't know what the definitive source is for current population estimates for Mexico but I found a World Bank estimate of 101 million in 2002, and the CIA World Factbook estimates 107.4 million as of July 2006. I couldn't find an estimate of the population in 2004, which would be the proper base against the Pew number.

So, even using the CIA 2006 estimate against the Pew estimate of illegal immigrants from 2004, there is the equivalent of an additional 5.2% of the Mexican population living in the U.S. thus on a per capita basis the rate is higher from Mexico. That makes sense since we share a land border.

I am not a statistician and I don't play one either. There are other ways to measure this, I'm sure.
Note that I used the highest estimate of Irish immigrants in the range, which skews the percentage upward, and compared the Mexican immigrant estimate against a population number from a more recent period, which has the effect of potentially lowering the percentage.

I'm still working on the morning caffeine fix but I think the numbers are decent estimates.

:beer:

[slaveplanet]

29. numbers are a tricky thing

The Irish numbers are probably fairly accurate, as most of them originally entered legally first on visas, and then broke the law, thus by simply counting the visas you get an accurate picture.

Illegals that come in via the southern/northern border, set out with firm intent of breaking the law from the get go, these numbers are far harder to get a handle on.

According to census numbers, which are also fairly inaccurate, as it takes cooperation of lawbreakers in order to achieve accuracy, the conservative low side estimate is 10 million illegals(not all Mexican).

Another, probably more accurate estimate, from the Welfare Bureau, where people are more willing to answer questions if it means receiving vital help, places the number of illegals at 25 million+, and that was a few years back.

[Gormy Cuss]

33. The question posed, however, can be answered using conservative est.

which is why I use the high number for the Irish and the generally accepted estimate for the Mexican nationals against the largest population estimate for overall population. The question was whether the per capita rate of undocumented migration for the Irish was the same as that of Mexicans, and the answer by any yardstick is a resounding no.

I would guess that thirty to forty years ago, it would have been a closer contest.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimate in 2004 for all illegal immigrants is around 11 million, the same number used by the conservative and anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies. It's derived from CPS and other standard measurement surveys. I'm not sure what you mean by 'the Welfare Bureau' but Iwould like to check out their stats if you could provide a full name or link. I would be interested in reviewing their estimation technique. Deriving numbers from applications for assistance would still require an estimation of those who are here illegally but not seeking assistance, as well as fairly exhaustive controls to reduce duplicate counting among those who seek help from different agencies and those who have discontinuous periods of assistance (the last is a problem encountering when no unique identifier such as SSN is used and presumably undocumented aliens are the least likely to posess this number.)

[slaveplanet]

36. Can't rememeber

where I saw the welfare numbers, it was a while back and I had a different computer. It had some shocking numbers in it though, 8 million illegals in Texas alone?(of course, a lot would have to pass through a border state to get to other areas).

from Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States

Investigative journalists Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, state in Time magazine in its September 12, 2004 issue, "It's fair to estimate, based on a Time magazine investigation, that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million/year - enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day for a year."<5>
-------------------------------


This Bear-Sterns investigation seems to place it's numbers more in line with the welfare numbers I saw, estimating 20-22 million illegals and it explains why the Pew method may be flawed:

wiki again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States



Bear Stern’s investigators <8> came up with another way to attack this very difficult problem. They made the assumption that the amount of remittances (money sent back to Mexico) is directly proportional to the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Other data used for their estimates are the increases of households and school enrollment in Mexican immigrant communities. They conclude that the number of illegal aliens in the United States may well be twice the official number put out by the U.S. Census of 9 million and may be 20 million people or higher. Information from The Mexican Central Bank and (U.S. Federal Reserve Banks) details the remittances and shows their growth <17>. According to that data, remittances stayed fairly stable until 2000 when a steady and dramatic increase began. The change in remittances between 1997 and 1999 is most likely a problem in accounting — the three year average is still about 450 thousand/year consistent with other data. The agreement with the Pew estimate is reasonably good up to 2001 where there is a significant difference — just where the Pew and Census data becomes harder to extrapolate because of lack of good data. Using this technique Bear Sterns investigators come up with a possible illegal population of 20 million or greater. (See figure for calculation) Other data confirming their estimates are the dramatic increases of households and school enrollment in Mexican immigrant communities (read their report for more details). Border Arrest data do not show this dramatic increase in apprehensions, so how could all these new illegal aliens have gotten here? A possible answer is simple — many of them simply drove to the United States on shopping trips that included new jobs and a new home and "forgot" to return to Mexico. According to the Bureau and Transportation statistics <18>there are over 200,000,000 "legal" border crossing from Mexico each year, ~80% by automobile. If only one percent kept on going plus the numbers that walk across the border and its easy to get the number of illegal aliens projected and the lack of interior enforcement says they have a good chance of getting away with it.

The number of illegal aliens emigrating the U.S. is estimated at about 240,000 /year (~20% of illegal population) <19>

----------

(the chart on the wiki link, says 16,364,000 Total Mexican Nationals by 2005)

-------------

I myself, am about as convinced of the high estimates as I am of the low estimates... Like I said, numbers are a tricky thing.

[slaveplanet]

23. 30,000...

Why, that's a whole suburb of a medium sized American city, a veritable invasion, indeed.

[gaspee]

15. Most of our illegals

Are Irish, English and Canadian. Or they are in the circles I run in. But way up here in New England, we have one of the lowest percentage of hispanic residents than almost any other part of the country.

Now, I need to find out how I go about getting one of these Irish work permits. I wonder if it would help that my one of my grandfathers was born in Ireland. The Fitz(rest of name) surname kind of gives it away. Paternal grandfather, if that's not obvious (VBG)

[Tellurian]

19. Yes, Dublin reminded me of Boston..

Most likely why Irish immigrants feel drawn to the Twin city.

[LiberalEsto]

24. Cool. Can we move to Ireland now? nt

[earth mom]

26. Yippee! Looks like I qualify-I'm half Irish.

Both of my Dads parents were born in Ireland. :)

But my question is how hard is it to get visas for the hubby and the kid? Anyone know? :shrug:

[Megahurtz]

31. Damn! Get an Irish Passport!

You can do it!:) Hell I would in a heartbeat!

Look what Xithras posted above:

http://www.irelandemb.org/fbr.html