Mayor of NY backs illegal Irish

THE Mayor of New York yesterday threw his political weight behind the campaign for illegal Irish immigrants in America.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on his first official visit to Ireland, said he would work to ensure immigrants — including undocumented Irish — secured permanent status in the US.

“We are not going to deport them. We want to make these people more productive members of society,” he said.

The mayor was speaking in Ballymote, where he unveiled a monument to the US Army’s Fighting 69th regiment, formed in 1851 by Irish immigrants. The regiment was led during the Civil War by General Michael Corcoran, a native of Carrowkeel in Co Sligo.

Mr Bloomberg expressed confidence that difficulties in Washington over proposed new immigration legislation would soon be resolved.

“I think you will see Congress pull together, sometime in the near future, and come to grips with immigration” he said.

Mr Bloomberg, while ruling out any role for himself in the Northern Ireland peace process, expressed the view that a one-island economy made sense from a business point of view.

“You are going to have all the people who live in close proximity share in an economic boom that’s happening in the Republic, but not yet Northern Ireland,” he said.

Mayor Bloomberg, once again, categorically ruled himself out of the US Presidential race in 2008, saying he would retire from politics once his term ends.

The monument to the 69th Regiment was the brainchild of Ballymote native, Deputy John Perry and a leading member of the Sligo Association in New York, Pat McGetterick.

The imposing monument includes steel from the destroyed twin towers in New York, donated by the relatives of firefighters.

Yesterday’s ceremony was also attended by Irish dancer Michael Flatley, whose father was born in Sligo; relatives of 9/11 firefighters; the widow of a 69th Regiment soldier killed in Iraq; senior members of the Irish Defence Forces; and politicians.

In his speech, Fine Gael’s Mr Perry said the monument recognised the birthplace of General Corcoran and also represented all the people who emigrated from Ireland over the past 200 years.

The ceremony was to have taken place three weeks ago but was postponed because of a political crisis caused by protracted power failures for thousands of homes in New York.