Readers Blog: America needs to remember its own story

Something snapped in my Irish spine when I read that Republican senator, Tom Cotton (Arkansas), one of the billâs creators, said that the current immigration system doesnât attract âthe very best talentâ and gets mostly low or unskilled workers.
To repudiate that insult to my Waterford ancestors, I would like to tell the story of my first American relatives, whose experience resonates with that promised to immigrants âyearning to breathe freeâ. In a pest house in New York City, my great-grandparents, Jeremiah and Ellen Lyons, had their first glimpse of their new home, America. Forced to flee famine and oppression, they left Dungarvan in 1845.