Stop the deportation of Irish Immigrants



I would like to re-address the issue of Republicans living in the United States being threatened with deportation by the bureaucratic nonsense spouters of the Homeland Security persuasion. What made me re-hash this issue is two-pronged. First of all is this article. A man convicted for the death of the two soldiers following the funeral of the victims of the Milltown Massacre is now threatened with deportation from the US, even though he has served his time in prison.

Secondly is the fact that Ciaran Ferry's illegal imprisonment has reached and surpassed a full year, now at 419 days. This bureaucratic injustice needs to stop. Can anyone tell me who voted for the Department of Homeland Security?

In November of 2003, after living for almost a decade as a residents of New Jersey, former member of the INLA Malachy McAllister and his family were denied an appeal against their deportation from the United States.

That same month, Ciaran Ferry's asylum appeal was denied. Ferry, a former member of the Provisional IRA, has been living and working in the US for a number of years with his wife Heaven and his young daughter Fiona. He was released from Long Kesh as a part of the Good Friday Agreement. This is an agreement that the United States Government endorses and even helped to broker, yet it refuses to recognise its provisions?

John Eddie McNicholl, a former member of the INLA was deported from the US in the summer of 2003. McNicholl, according to a statement made by the Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement was a member of the "Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a terrorist organization in Northern Ireland". Truth is that the INLA has NEVER appeared on the United States' list of recognised terrorist groups. This is a violation of mandates of Congress regarding their own means of identifying a "terrorist."

The hypocrisy of the current US Administration is sickening. And its stranglehold on Irish nationalists within the American Irish communities is ever-strengthening. Fears of being labeled a supporter of terrorism keep people sitting back while innocent hard-working family people are unjustly ousted from a country that was founded with ideals of justice and freedom as its building blocks.

The US/UK Extradition Treaty is just another stake in the heart of democracy and a huge threat to Irish Republicans living in America. Do not let this "Treaty" be silently enforced.

Fight the thinly veiled fascism.  ¶ 2:18 a.m.