By April Drew

A Belfast native who has spent the past 30 years saving lives as an Emergency Medical Service technician (EMS), including time served at Ground Zero after 9/11, may face deportation back to Northern Ireland if he can't produce the visitor's visa he arrived on in 1974. He has been undocumented since.

Andrew McGoldrick, 55, who lives in Belmar, New Jersey, is married to Susan Manning, an American citizen, and they have an 18- month-old daughter. He also has five other girls between the ages of 32 and 12 from previous marriages.

A little over a year ago McGoldrick and his wife decided it was time he applied for his green card. “I got called for my interview on January 10 and it was over before it started,” claims McGoldrick, who has been given a 12 week extension, with a possibility of a further 12 weeks to find the visa attached to his passport that allowed him entry into the United States 34 years ago.

Finding his old visa will be an impossible task for McGoldrick, who regretfully told the Irish Voice he lost his passport in Florida some years ago. “There is no way I'm going to find that visa and I've been told that no one will have records going that far back,” he said.

McGoldrick, like many people of his time, fled the Troubles in Northern Ireland and came to the U.S. to create a life for himself. “I came and as you can see I overstayed,” he said.

He fell in love and his partner at the time became pregnant so McGoldrick stayed with the mother and his daughter.

Years ago, McGoldrick had no difficulty receiving a Social Security number or a driver’s license. “All I did was walk into the federal building, showed them my passport and they gave me a Social Security number so I immediately got work and a driver’s license,” he recalls.

Over the years McGoldrick contacted the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) regarding his status and tried to get it sorted but he claims, “They always messed up with wrong forms, wrong fees and wrong everything.”

McGoldrick, who hasn't left the U.S. since arriving, didn't think in his wildest dreams his status was going to put him in this situation 34 years later.

“I've always been paying taxes, working all my life to save lives and now my time could be up,” said the immigrant, who has no intention of returning to his hometown if deported. “I couldn't go back to Belfast, too many bad memories.” If it comes down to it he will use his British passport and go to live in a British colony like the Bahamas.

His wife Susan and his baby daughter Analise Clare accompanied McGoldrick to his green card interview.

“It was us, a stand in lawyer (his own lawyer was on safari in South Africa) and a Russian homeland security officer. All was going great until she asked me how I came into the country 34 years ago. I told her about the visitors visa and losing it and she replied with 'no can do' because the law says you must prove how you came in and I couldn't,” he said.

McGoldrick told the Irish Voice that he feels persecuted after all he has done to help others.

“It's been my pleasure over the years to work saving American men, women and children. I dug though the rubble at ground zero after 9/11 until my hands and feet bled and I could no longer breathe and now America is turning it's back on me,” he said. “It's like America is telling me and my family thanks for all you've done but it's time to leave now.”

McGoldrick, unlike most Irish undocumented in the early 1990s, never applied for the Morrison visas that gave legal status to so many thousand undocumented Irish. “I was advised at the time by close friends not to apply for it, that it was the government’s way of getting information on illegals in the country,” he said.

McGoldrick has 11 weeks remaining to find a solution or build up a good case as to why he should remain in the U.S. to continue life with his daughters and his wife Susan or he may very well be deported.