Irish America and pigs have an unfortunate history.
In the 19th century, Puck magazine was virulently anti-Irish and in many issues depicted the Irish as apes, or pigs, depending on the caricature needed.
In modern times, the pig symbol hasn't gone away. In 1977 the mayor of Chicago revealed that Princess Margaret had referred to the Irish as pigs over dinner.
Irish America did not take the insult lightly. A short time later, when the British royal was in San Francisco, activists let loose a few squealing piglets on the main street to remind her of what she said. Ten thousand people also showed up to protest her visit.
It is unheard of, though, for an Irish American activist to use the analogy when speaking of fellow Irish. Yet that is precisely what the US-Ireland Alliance President Trina Vargo did when writing about Irish undocumented in The Irish Times last week.
She compared efforts to pass a bilateral visa deal between the Irish and U.S. governments as putting "lipstick on that pig," the only clear explanation of that being that the Irish undocumented are somehow the pigs.
To say it was an unfortunate choice of words is putting it mildly. To say that it smacked of an elitist attitude towards those Irish undocumented who dare to try to make a life for themselves in America is self-evident.
Vargo runs a Washington-based organization which has received more money from the Irish government than any other group in America ever has.
The Irish government has given the group $20 million in matching funds in order to perpetuate its Mitchell Scholarships, called after Senator George Mitchell, which annually bring a dozen high performing students from America to Ireland.
The Alliance has also persuaded a number of wealthy Irish businessmen to invest in the concept, and the group also hosts golf tournaments and Hollywood galas to seek more funding.
All of which was fine until Vargo decided that the unwashed undocumented are "morally wrong" to seek to try and regularize their status, as she wrote in the Times.
What her opinion on the matter has to do with the mission of the US-Ireland Alliance, or whether anyone on her board was consulted before she decided to undermine efforts to legalize the Irish undocumented is unclear.
It is doubtful if the Irish government supports her attack on the undocumented either, given that they are at the very center of the efforts to regularize the status of their own citizens.
In an extraordinary broadside on those seeking to help the undocumented, Vargo claimed in her piece that seeking an Irish deal would be "morally wrong," and would "harm the U.S.-Ireland relationship." All utter nonsense.
There are many things in the world to get outraged about. Irish Americans seeking to help their own become legal in America is not one of them.
As a former staffer for Senator Edward Kennedy Vargo knows well that every bill that hits Congress has specials deals written into every nook and cranny. That is even more true on immigration issues.
Australia, Singapore, Chile and Nicaragua are just a few of the countries that have had visa deals written into bilateral negotiations with the U.S. For Ireland to do so would hardly be the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig now, would it?
Obviously Vargo believes so. Hers is the only Irish organization in the U.S. that feels this way, it seems.
Her malevolent intervention comes at a time when it seemed some progress was being made on the issue. It is a shameful attempt to condemn young Irish immigrants to life in the shadows here, but it won't work.