Immigrants protest at Dáil against deportation

THEY came with a sea of push chairs and prams, as unlikely a protest as Leinster House has ever seen.

More than 500 immigrants and asylum seekers who have applied for residency here on the basis of an Irish-born child assembled to call on Justice Minister Michael McDowell not to deport them.

Yesterday was the first public protest involving so many of the 11,000 families living in limbo since January’s Supreme Court ruling that parents of children born here do not have an automatic entitlement to residency. Mr McDowell has yet to decide how to apply the ruling to cases pending when the court decision was reached, although a decision is expected soon.

Corina and Ovidiu Ropotan from Romania and their one-year-old Irish-born daughter, Jessica, were among the hundreds of families who are unsure of their future.

“Minister McDowell hear us say, Irish children have to stay,” they chanted along with the crowd.

Mr Ovidiu said that, if he could talk to Mr McDowell, he would ask him to have sympathy for the hundreds of families affected: “I’m in Ireland now for seven years and I have no right to work. I have no security and they want to sent my family away. I just want to have a good and safe life for my family. There are so many kids and it’s the same for them all. They don’t know what their future is.”

Addressing the protest Sinn Féin justice spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh said the creation of a two-tier citizenship was racist: “What the minister proposes to do is create a two-tier citizenship, with a tier of second class citizens based on their race and ethnicity.”

Trinity Reid professor of law and civil liberties activist Ivana Bacik called on Mr McDowell not to deport any Irish-born children: “We should be welcoming the immigrant communities and seeking to vindicate the rights of Irish children.”

Independent TD Finian McGrath said the Dáil’s passing of the controversial Immigration Bill on Wednesday was a disgrace. As a former teacher in inner city Dublin with a class made up of 15% immigrants, Mr McGrath said the Government’s policies were preventing integration: “There is no baggage for the parents. There is no baggage for the teachers. The baggage is all coming from in there in Leinster House.”

Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins said: “If you are a shareholder of a multinational corporation you may come here and have a red carpet put out in front of you. If you are poor than what you get is a different reception altogether from the Irish Government. That’s shameful.”

Labour justice spokesman Joe Costello called on Mr McDowell to announce a moratorium for all pending cases, while the Green Party’s Ciaran Cuffe asked what would happen to any children left behind.

“If they are taken in by the health boards what kind of quality of life is that? No money and no health board in the world can compensate for the right to have a family and a family unit,” he said.