Immigrants Riled by Irish Push for Special Status

An effort by the Irish to secure a special immigration deal solely for illegal immigrants from Ireland isn't sitting well with some of their former partners in the fight for an overhaul of federal immigration policy.

Although immigrant organizations officially have refrained from criticizing the Irish, many rank-and-file Hispanic immigrants — who say their families have been hit hardest by deportations — are saying they are shocked that the Irish are quietly working for a separate pact with federal officials.

"It's absurd that they're working alone. We should unite together," Segundo Alvarez, 54, said at a May 1 rally in Union Square for workers' rights, during which participants criticized a recent wave of workplace raids and deportations, mostly of Hispanic immigrants.

The rally was much smaller than in previous years, when thousands of immigrants from around the world poured into the streets in New York and other cities to support a bill that would have created a path to legalization for immigrants of all nationalities.

Since that effort collapsed last year, the Irish government and Irish immigrant groups in America have been working closely with senators and other lawmakers to push forward a separate deal for the Irish, with the Irish prime minister naming senators Schumer of New York and Kennedy of Massachusetts as the officials with whom he has been working most closely. The prime minister, Bertie Ahern, was in Washington last week to speak to Congress and meet with the Bush administration after assuring the Irish community in America that he was working hard to push through a deal.

Irish leaders have defended their proposal for a separate pact by saying it would correct what they call historic inequities, referring in particular to a change in the law in 1965 that reduced the number of visas for the Irish as it opened up those available to immigrants from regions other than Europe.

Although other groups have pushed for special treatment, including immigrants from Haiti, where there is a food crisis, and Central America, where natural disasters have disrupted the economy, many of those interviewed seemed to see the Irish deal differently.

"They have a lot of power, but we have children. It's unjust," an immigrant from Guerrero, Mexico, Bonifacio Martinez, said of Irish immigrants.

Mr. Martinez, 28, said the need for a deal is more urgent for many Hispanic families who have been separated from their American-born children during recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps. Mr. Martinez, who attended the May 1 rally with his two American-born toddlers, added that he often worries about what would happen to his children if he were deported.

"It's the Mexicans they look for to deport," he added.

Although the Mexican community in particular has been growing rapidly in the city, with their expanding numbers on display yesterday at a series of Cinco de Mayo events, the news of the Irish efforts to get their own deal was evidence to many that they have a long way to go before they wield as much clout.

"We need more people in government who are Hispanic, and Mexican," Noel Silva, 29, of Oaxaca, Mexico, said as he towed his 3-year-old son and carried his year-old daughter to a Cinco de Mayo festival in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens yesterday. Another Mexican immigrant who attended the Flushing event, Santiago Hernandez, 29, said he believed the Irish have gotten farther in their efforts for a deal because their political roots are deeper in America and they're more organized. He criticized his own community for being scattered in comparison, pointing to the separate Cinco de Mayo events around the city, including the festival in Queens, a sparsely attended march down Central Park West, and a street fair in East Harlem.

"There's no unity, and so we don't have power," he said.

Other Hispanic immigrants see racial bias in the luck the Irish have had in finding officials to listen seriously to their proposal for a special deal.

"The Anglo-Saxons I guess are preferable for the United States," a Mexican immigrant who participated in the May Day march, Charlie Moran, 33, said.

"We don't oppose any reform, but this is divide and conquer," he added.

Correction from May 8, 2008: People of Irish descent are Celtic. The were mischaracterized in a quotation in an article on page 3 of the May 5 New York Sun.