http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bus ... 95248.html

April 15, 2006, 12:32AM

Immigration issue has Irish accent
Thousands in Massachusetts are undocumented
By BRIAN K. SULLIVAN and TOM MORONEY
Bloomberg News

In Boston, the face of illegal immigration may be blue-eyed and freckled.

The Massachusetts capital, where thousands of people have marched in recent weeks seeking immigration reform, harbors an estimated 10,000 illegal Irish, according to figures compiled by Ireland's government. That's one-fifth of the total in the U.S. and the highest percentage of any American city.

"Boston has been known in Ireland for centuries as the home away from home," said Thomas Keown, spokesman for the Irish Immigration Center in Boston. "Someone living in a small town like Donegal may have more friends in Boston than they do in Dublin."

Most of the immigration protests that culminated this week with a "national day of action" have had a Spanish flavor, with shouts of "Si, Se Puede" ("Yes, We Can") recalling the migrant farm workers' movement.

The marchers who walked from Boston Common to Copley Square were accompanied by Celtic music and Irish banners. Roman Catholic Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley joined the crowd and offered his encouragement.

Green card lottery
Every year in the United States, 50,000 "green cards" become available in a kind of lottery, Keown said. About 200 people from Ireland got the cards last year.

Like their Mexican counterparts, the illegal Irish immigrants work in restaurants, as domestics and on construction crews. The differences in their lives can be illustrated starting at the U.S. borders, said Susan Akram, an immigration law professor at Boston University.

"Compare the northern border with the southern border," Akram said. "We don't have triple barbed wire in Vermont. We are not so concerned about the white immigration that comes across from the north."

A long history
The Irish have a long history of coming into the U.S. legally or illegally for jobs or to reunite with family members who preceded them.

"People, when they hear the accent, do ask how long I've been here, and a few have asked whether I have a green card," said an undocumented Irish woman who insisted on anonymity because of the fear she would be deported. "I tell them yes, and no one questions it."

The 32-year-old woman, who works in an office and performs in community theater, said she gets away with it "because I speak English, I'm white and I'm Irish. I feel sorry for the Mexicans."

"When we hear there are people who are opposed to a path for legalization, it always seems Mexico bears the brunt of this," Keown said. "I can't explain what's in the minds of those who are more predisposed to an Indian or an Irishman than to a Mexican. I wish it wasn't so."

Race plays a big part in how different immigrant groups are treated, said Thomas P. O'Neill III, son of the late speaker of the House of Representatives and a fundraiser for Irish and Northern Irish causes.

The backlash against Mexicans is the same that hit the Irish more than 100 years ago, he said.

"It is the 2006 version of Know-Nothingism," said O'Neill, 61, citing the anti-immigration nativist party of the 1840s.

1 million immigrants
About 1 million of Massachusetts' 6.4 million residents are immigrants, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Of those, 150,000 to 200,000 are undocumented.

Massachusetts has been losing population over the last 10 years and it's the illegal immigrants who have been filling low-wage jobs, O'Neill said.

The Senate, now in recess, is working to pass an overhaul of immigration policies that includes strengthening border security and creating a guest-worker program. One of the leaders on immigration reform is Sen. Edward Kennedy, head of Massachusetts' most famous Irish family.

The immigration reform proposal in the Senate would help undocumented workers, including the Irish, remain in the U.S.