“give rise to a belief that further amnesties will become available in the future..”

A short report here notes that “The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has told the Dail that it would be “extremely difficult” to regularise the status of illegal Irish immigrants in the United States.” Would that be because, as the Irish government’s Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, has said – “Amnesty or regularisation, in my view, undermines the system of legal migration. They can exacerbate the problem of illegal migration by sending out the wrong message and give rise to a belief that further amnesties will become available in the future.”? Not that any such concerns prevented the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, from lobbying for just such a deal.. Meanwhile the Andersonstown News carries a telephone interview with one recently apprehended illegal Irish immigrant in the US.. From the report

“And they asked me if I was a citizen. I said no, I was an Irish citizen. And I gave them my papers. And they said ‘This has expired.'” Brennan told the Andersonstown News, during a telephone interview from the Port Isabel Processing center ­ a Department of Homeland Security administered facility, outside Los Fresnos, Texas.
Brennan has been working as a carpenter since being released from US custody in 1998, and is required to update his work permit every six months. Although he’d submitted a renewal application in 2006, US authorities had never sent him a new permit.

And he never asked why..

Pete Baker