Irish in New York react cautiously to new visa bill

If they are illegal or undocumented or whatever you want to call it, deport them. Why should they go ahead of people who have applied correctly, paid visa fees and waited patiently to be let into the country? If you legalise them, what is the point of having immigration control if you can simply bypass the system by saying "I'm an illegal, so I must be a victim. Therefore I need special treatment". If you haven't got a visa, stay at home.

George is correct. These people are breaking our laws by being here. We should NOT try to sugarcoat their behavior. Nor is there anything wrong with inventing new words or changing usage. Irish ILLEGALS asre not undocumented. They came into the country with documents, but their documents are out-of-date, illegal. Illegal Irish immigrants are not "economic refugees"; there is no famine in Ireland. They are no worse off than other Europeans. But we aren't seeing illegal British, French, Germans coming here and overstaying visas. This is Ireland's traditional way of dealing with bad economic times. It is time the Irish learned to abide by laws.

Georgie Boy you're parents did their best.Leave the anger go.I'll help ya.Repeat after me three times.All people no matter how I perceive them to be deserve my respect unless they act like I do.

eiriamach, despite your long boring paragraphs of nonsense, these people HAVE broken US immigration law. When you come into this country as a tourist you are given a date by which to leave. Violate that, and you are a law breaker. Adhere to the dateline, and you have respected our country and are welcome to return again some time. You, eiriamach apart from being a senseless racist, appear to condone law breaking by foreigners. Do you consort with criminals in other matters?

This article uses the word "undocumented" carefully. I wonder whether Ms Muldoon read the article by H. Samy Alim in the NY Times, Dec. 21: "What If We Occupied Language?" Alim calls on us to "support the campaign to stop the media from using the word 'illegal' to refer to 'undocumented' immigrants.... [O]nly inanimate objects and actions are labeled 'illegal' in English; therefore the use of 'illegals' to refer to human beings is dehumanizing. The New York Times style book currently asks writers to avoid terms like 'illegal alien' and 'undocumented,' but says nothing about 'illegals.' Yet The Times’ standards editor, Philip B. Corbett, did recently weigh in on this, saying that the term 'illegals' has an 'unnecessarily pejorative tone' and that 'it’s wise to steer clear.'" We are more likely to deal with undocumented immigrant workers in a humane way if we do not label them law breakers before we even begin. Perhaps they are a better fit for the category of "refugees" (economic refugees). Just as political refugees flee from oppressive governments, economic refugees flee from the threat of extreme poverty at home. To label them law breakers ("illegals") sets them up as targets of bigotry, harassment and hate crimes. And far-right tea partiers scapegoat them for our own economic crisis, a crisis caused by the greed of mega-corporation CEOs and congressional flunkies for the wealthy, not by immigrants. If we describe them as "undocumented workers," we are more likely to "do the right thing for the Irish,” as Dubliner Clare put it.