St. Patrick's: A Day to remember immigrants.

This an important time for immigrants in the United States. And St. Patrick's day is a day celebrating our immigrant heritage.

The current anti-immigrant movement is not new. For at least the past 100 years people have been demonizing newcomers, minimizing their contribution and calling on the government to make and enforce harsh laws.

Irish immigrants, legal and illegal, have come for centuries and contributed to our society and culture. They faced accusations that they were disloyal and caused crime. They faced quotas and discrimination. Yet they came and worked and built lives and made contributions to our country.

Not even our current brand of gun-toting anti-immigrant vigilante groups are new. Our immigrant ancestors, Irish and otherwise, faced the same.

St. Patrick's day is a day to remember the trials, perseverence and contributions of immigrants. Since the 19th centuries immigrants faced contradictory laws and messages- with society wanting their labor and contributions, yet refusing to allow them to become a part of society.

Today there is hope. The McCain-Kennedy bill offers todays immigrants, both Irish and non, a chance to step out of the shadows. They will allow worker who pay a fine and any back taxes, and work toward becoming a part of our country a chance to become legal.

On St. Patrick's day we celebrate the immigrant. We also remember that we are a nation built of immigrants.

So wear green and grab a Guiness... but right now there is something more you can do to celebrate your immigrant heritage.

This month in the Senate, immigration reform is being debated... whether we are going to treat today's immigrants living in the shadows with respect, or whether we will refuse to recognize their contributions and keep them in limbo.

Call your Senator today and tell them to support McCain-Kennedy. Your great grandparents (Irish or not) would be proud.

Many Irish have returned to Ireland in recent years, a lot of them for thankfully positive economic reasons.

But many have also stuck it out in America despite their lack of status.

Why would they put themselves through such psychological and financial strain we wonder?

Perhaps it is because they see themselves as part of a country that, even as it struggles to deal with a huge influx of immigrants from many lands, still has enough of a friendliness and familiarity to it that it can never be seen as being somehow strange or foreign to newcomers from Ireland.

And that's the heart of it for thousands of undocumented Irish. When Tancredo, and others who think as he does on immigration, point their fingers outwards, beyond America's borders, they forget that some who they would see off have been here for so long that this country is now home to them.

With that in mind it is up to even immigration hardliners like the congressman from Colorado to get to grips with immigration reform in a sensible and realistic way.

Yes, some additional Irish will likely quit on their American dream in the days ahead.

But not all will. They are here to stay, to build and to contribute to a nation that would be unrecognizable if not for the contributions of those Irish who came here before them.