Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995

Epilogue

As this book goes to press in the twenty-¤rst century, the number of people leaving Ireland runs at more than 18,000 a year.1 Between 1990 and 1998 the number of people entering Ireland each year ran between 30,000 and 44,000. Recent census data from Ireland reports that net in-migration (the immigration ¤gure after adjusting for births and deaths in Ireland) to the country in 1998 was 22,800, up from 15,000 in 1997. That number resulted from a record number of Irish-born migrants returning to Ireland and an increasing number of foreign-born immigrants and refugees seeking asylum in Ireland.2 In 1996 and 1997 the Irish government reported that 6,600 documented and 6,000 undocumented Irish immigrants returned to Ireland.3 The in®ux, widely reported in the media on both sides of the Atlantic, hid the fact that young Irish emigrants continued to leave Ireland for the United States. The actual numbers of emigrants for 1998 and 1999 were 21,200 and 18,500 respectively, down from a peak of 61,100 in 1988. In terms of destinations, the numbers traveling to Great Britain have dropped, while the percentage of Irish leaving for Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world have dominated the movement since 1993. In 1998, the United States accounted for almost onequarter of the total migration, up from about 10 or 15 percent in the 1980s.4 One of the reasons offered for the remarkable jump in migration to Ireland in the last few years is the extraordinary economic prosperity that Ireland enjoyed at the end of the twentieth century. Ireland had the fastest growing economy in the European Union (EU). The unemployment rate for January 2000 was 4.9 percent, down from 5 percent the previous month and lower than the 5.6 percent annual rate for 1999. An in®ation rate of 4.4 percent in January 2000 was higher than the
Epilogue 3.9 annual rate posted in December 1999, and the January rate was the highest posted for the European Union (EU).5 But the ¤gures are signi¤cantly lower than the double-digit numbers posted for in®ation and unemployment in the 1980s that initiated the exodus of New Irish. The upturn has attracted white-collar and bluecollar workers back to the Republic.6 Despite the strong economy in Ireland and the various visa programs inaugurated since 1986, migration to the United States persists, and many of the migrants still enter on visa waivers as visitors and overstay their visit. While the migrants have not yet reached the numbers estimated to have entered in the mid- and late eighties, emigrant advocates in the United States and in Ireland claim that the current wave of immigrants is at greater risk than the population who arrived ten or¤fteen years ago. The most recent migrants are younger, less equipped for the transition to the United States, less skilled, and with less prospect of obtaining a green card. Without proper work authorization, they live outside the mainstream of the American economy, are unable to secure a driver’s license, and work without insurance coverage or medical bene¤ts. According to immigrant advocates, they will probably never be able to change their status. Recent legislation enforces a very unwelcoming environment for undocumented aliens in New York City and across the country. About one-quarter of the Irish who enter the United States settle in New York City.7 Advocates at the Catholic Charities of¤ce in Manhattan, the Emerald Isle Immigration Center (EIIC) in Woodside, Queens, and the Aisling Irish Center in Yonkers, New York, describe most recent migrants as under 25, with about half younger than 21. They have few skills and the equivalent of a high school education , though some have a university degree; most are without work authorization, immigrant visas, or permanent resident status. In a change from the previous decade , the advocates are seeing many more emigrants from Northern Ireland as well. A recent report puts the annual out®ow at 12,000.8 Sister Edna MacNicholl of the Aisling Center, Patricia O’Callaghan of Catholic Charities, and Carolyn Ryan, executive director of Emerald Isle Immigration Center, all agree that the Celtic Tiger—Ireland’s economic boom—roared past these emigrants. They have been unable to participate in the surging economy that marks Ireland as the fastestgrowing member of the Common Market. These young men and women set...