Hopes are dimming for passage of Irish E3 visa bill in Congress

I read that some republicans wonder why Ireland should have an immigration advantage when Americans don't have a reciprocal arrangement for working in Ireland and that is why they are not in favor of the E3 visa- The fact is that millions of americans have an entitlement to an Irish passport if they have one Irish grandparent- There is little bureaucracy attached to this so they already have an advantage.

"Fifty three Democrats have signed on to the bill" yet "Scott Brown (R-Mass), seems to be unable to line up enough GOP support." Does this surprise anyone here? The GOP considers immigration(or E3 visas)of any kind a dirty word. This was transparent pandering for the Boston Irish vote when in reality Brown knew it would never pass his GOP.

George, you get more and more boring, retarded, yet slightly funnier with every post ye crazy old Yank!

ciarade:"Im not going to pretend that I know anything about nor care about US politics." Ignorance of a topic hasn't prevented you from posting on it up to now. You post on dozens of topics, and you are ignorant on them all. You're an utter fool.

A government minister was in the paper the other day, begging companies to take on young people, because companies are addicted to cheap foreign labour.

We have have a saying in England, Bythebay, "I read it in the Sun, so it must be true!". I'll let you guess what that means. Personally, I never believe anything I read in the paper. A lot of stuff is just paid-for advertising masquerading as serious journalism,designed to make people believe there is no recession. Believe me, now is not a good time to come looking for a job in England. It has never been like this, and I have seen at least 2 major recessions in my lifetime.

Why should illegals be put before people who go through the legitimate ways to get into a country? Its pretty easy to get into the US. All you need a job offer.

Why is my name above the post regarding a pendulum 2 posts down?I didnt post that. Im not going to pretend that I know anything about nor care about US politics!

George, Ireland isnt even in the top 30 countries for immigration. get your facts straight! The top 10 for a start, are the US,Russia, Germany,Uk, Ukraine, France, Saudi, Canada,India and Spain.

Remember the goal of articles like this- Get brown out because he is a new republican. The pendulum is swinging back, which means opportunity for individuals to make it on their own may still be alive.

It certainly takes alot of energy to maintain such hatred and anger towards Americans. I guess it's ok if you haven't anything more important in your life. I am Irish American and if you do not like it...that is just to bad. You keep your anger and hatred to yourself and let the rest of us live and love life as we see fit.

Vincem1: "One last wrinkle concerning Irish immigration is that Ireland has practically blocked immigration itself." That's not true. Ireland is full of foreign migrants, the highest rate of immigration in the world. It's just that they discriminate against Americans when it comes to immigration.

If the Democrats have a majority in favor as stated in this article then why doesn't the bill pass? Another question I never hear addressed here concerns the fact that Ireland discriminates against Americans who wish to go have a hand at working in Ireland. Why should we treat them any different than they treat us? What am I missing here? Irish politicians need to change policies to stop draining Ireland of its wonderfully educated youth. The emigration is senseless.

I don't care what you call yourselves, but don't say you're Irish. You are modern day Nativists bolting the door to the Irish hordes. You're the same crowd, different century, that is all.

First off, most of my family came to the States LEGALLY during and just after the Potato Famine from Ireland, so I would be very happy to welcome some more of the Irish to this great melting pot. All those griping about the Republicans being so against immigration are just repeating the National Democratic Party/Obama Campaign talking points without really looking at the issue. The fact is that the USA just doesn't have a healthy enough economy or infrastructure to handle an increase in legal immigration- let alone accommodate the illegals. I think it's kind of funny that someone still thinks that the GOP wants to give millionaires a tax-cut. Three problems with that: it's only a tax cut if you decrease the rate of taxation- they're not; almost one half of all legal Americans after all is said and done end up with no federal taxes to pay; oh, and most of the very rich are democrats not republicans. One last wrinkle concerning Irish immigration is that Ireland has practically blocked immigration itself. What was that about "those who live in glass houses..."?