By NiallO’Dowd

IT will be a tough Christmas for those in our community who are undocumented this year.

There is no time of year that is tougher, especially for Irish immigrants unable to go back to the Emerald Isle. Christmas is the homecoming season in Ireland, where the return home of exiles is eagerly awaited, and family from far flung corners gather together for blessed reunions.

As any emigrant who has spent Christmas away from hearth and home can tell you, it is an experience that many do not want to repeat.

But amid the gloom of being unable to return this Christmas, there is real hope this Christmas that 2006 will be the last one for which exiles have to spend the precious holiday abroad.

The recent turnover in Congress where Democrats have come back into power in both the House and Senate was the best possible news for the immigration reform lobby. Certainly, there will never be a better opportunity than 2007 with a pro-immigration House and Senate and White House to pass a reform bill.

This time last year prospects were distinctly dim that any breakthrough could happen. The general sense was that immigration reform would never even be considered in the 2006 Congress and that if it was, it would never emerge from the Senate which was controlled by the Republican Party.

At the time the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) was just a few weeks old, but already there were clear signs that the young undocumented community were prepared to rally together on this issue and make a difference.

That certainly proved to be the case. Anyone who attended the ILIR rally and lobby days in Washington came away deeply impressed with the commitment and courage the young Irish from across the country showed. They were arguably the most successful lobby days in history for the Irish.

Throughout the year the issue of immigration reform waxed and waned, but it became increasingly clear that there was sufficient support among both Republicans and Democrats to pass a version of reform through the Senate.

At the same time it also became clear that in the House a group of nativist Republicans were determined to block immigration reform at all costs in hopes of gaining an electoral boost by painting their opponents as pro-illegal immigration.

In the event the Republicans blocked the bill that emerged from the Senate, but the electorate made clear that they had little time for their crude tactics. Many leaders of the effort to demonize immigrants were defeated and the country was left with a half finished bill which suited no one’s purpose.

The situation cannot continue much longer. Every day it seems there are examples in the media of towns across the U.S. trying to take the law into their own hands by passing restrictive measures on immigrants.

Some governors such as the dreadful Mitt Romney in Massachusetts have enacted anti-immigrant legislation in the hopes of making themselves more attractive to primary voters in the Republican race for president.

The need for a coherent direction from the federal government has never been greater. Immigration legislation will not work if introduced piecemeal.

What is needed is a sweeping bill to change the dynamic for once and for all. The emigrants here for another Christmas far from loved ones, whether they are in Kerry or Ecuador, deserve better.