Amnesty For All

national | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Thursday September 09, 2004 15:41 by Unity - African Social Forum africansocialforum at yahoo dot com

Public meeting

Hosted by the AFRICAN SOCIAL FORUM
with speakers from trade union movement, Union of Students in Ireland, and special guest speaker facing deportation

Why the government should grant an:

AMNESTY FOR ALL
IMMIGRANTS
Saturday 18th September

2pm Liberty Hall, Eden Quay


The recent referendum on citizenship has created distress in immigrant communities at the negative attitudes directed toward them. Their fears were confirmed when an RTE exit poll found that 36 percent of Yes voters thought ‘the country is being exploited by immigrants’

It is now time to reverse this negative image by recognising positive contributions that immigrants have made to Irish society. A tangible way to do this would be to provide an amnesty for immigrants.

During the referendum debate, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said that ‘When the Citizenship Bill has been passed, we can address the existing people in Ireland without feeling we are creating precedents’ (Irish Times 14th June 2004).

It is now time to act.

Why an Amnesty?

There are a number of reasons why an amnesty should be granted:

Deportations are costly and traumatic. Special planes are chartered. People are forcibly removed. Children who have been brought up speaking English are suddenly uprooted from friends and a familiar environment and have to learn a new language and a new culture.



11,000 families applied for residency based on having an Irish born child. Some withdrew applications for asylum on the basis that being a parent of an Irish child would allow them to stay here.

However, are not the rights of 11,000 Irish children today being rendered ineffective because their parents can be deported? Why should one Irish citizen be forced into becoming a ward of the court, while other have a right to enjoy access to their parent.

Beyond these 11,000 families, there are many more immigrants who have been in Ireland for a number of years and have found themselves in a legal limbo. Many of these have made a major contribution to the Irish economy – whether through working legally or illegally.

However, their illegal status has rendered them open to gross exploitation. One of the major contributory factors for the Celtic Tiger was growth in labour participation rates – due, mainly, to immigrants and women joining the workforce. The number of women entering the labour force has begun to taper off since 1999 – therefore immigrants are likely a still more important role in the future.

According to the Irish Labour Market Review, the largest increase in the medium term in the Irish economy will be in services, which the labour force is set to rise by 18 percent. It is precisely in these areas, that many immigrants currently find work.

They should therefore be granted an amnesty so that they can make a full and open contribution to the Irish economy. Amnesties for immigrants have been introduced in a number of industrialised economies. In 1992, Non- EU immigrants to Portugal who had lived there for six months were granted

an amnesty. It was deigned to benefit the tens of thousands of African who had come from Portugal’s former colonies. Canada introduced an amnesty in 1973 with the approval of all parties and 39,000 people benefited from it. Most recently, a new amnesty has been announced to address the needs of the labour market. Undocumented workers are being given temporary visas and are then eligible to apply for permanent status after 2 years.

In 1986, the US government offered and amnesty. It is again currently offering anamnesty programme for the 8 to 11 million illegal immigrants. It is granting 3-year work visas to previously undocumented immigrants.

Amnesties have been offered for the simple reason they make sense. They recognise the reality that many immigrants will stay here permanently – despite the myth that they are only here as ‘guest workers.

Irish people have benefited considerably from amnesty when they were illegal immigrants. In the 1980s, Bruce Morrisson sponsored a Bill for special visas to be issued to Irish citizens. Almost 50,000 Irish – many of whom were illegal immigrants- took advantage of the Bill. It was the official policy of the Irish government to lobby for Irish illegal immigrants and to seek to have their situation regularised.

Natural justice implies the same situation should pertain here.

The Human Rights Commission and the Irish Bishops conference has already called openly for an amnesty. It is now vital that other organisations in Irish society come forward and support this call.

The African Social Forum believes that a broad coalition should be formed to support the call for an amnesty.

We would therefore like to invite as many groups and individuals as possible to attend a public meeting for a campaign for Amnesty For All.

It will take place on Saturday 18th September at 2pm in Liberty Hall, Eden Quay, Dublin.

African Social Forum:

GLADSTONE OGBONNA; LUKE CHOTO

Tel: 086-3152597

or Joe Carolan

Amnesty for All Campaign:

087 9032281