Dawie I totally agree. I've got a bit of empathy regarding undocumented immigrants, regardless of where they're from. I think that's what irks me a bit about the Irish situation. As far as the US goes, I'd prefer amnesty for all of them, not to pick and choose which classes of people get to stay. I know this probably is going to come out sounding harsh, and I don't mean it to, but if the Irish were to get deported from the US, they are coming back to a country much better than it was years ago. A much different scenario than those that have fled war-torn, oppressive, poor and unstable countries that the Irish seek to deport from Ireland. Same with the US.
I had an interesting (and frustrating) conversation with a taxi driver here a few weeks ago. He had overstayed his visa waiver in the US and lived there for 6 or 7 years before coming back to Northern Ireland. He came home on his own because he didn't want to risk getting caught by INS with immigration becoming a hot-button issue over there. He went on and on about how the US government should give amnesty to the undocumented Irish because "We built this country". He also seemed to resent to being "lumped together" with other classes of immigrants, namely Latin Americans. He had only been back a couple of weeks and already was working for a taxi company. I pointed out to him that he was lucky he had a place to come back to where he could get a car and a job and all that right away, and that other people wouldn't be so fortunate and he still insisted that the Irish should get special treatment. Oh, and he complained about the increasing number of immigrants here in the North
