By Georgina Brennan

THE 20-degree weather was no match for the determined thousand who thronged into Dorchester’s Florian Hall last Thursday night for the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform’s (ILIR) Boston Town Hall Meeting.

Wrapped in winter coats and scarves, breathing cold raspy air into the hall, one by one the young and old Irish came out to rally for reform. With babies bundled in strollers and disabled residents comforted in fluffy blankets, the community came out to hear what they could do to change the immigration laws this year.

Sheila Gleeson, executive director of the Coalition of Irish Immigration Centers, and other officials guided people around the room, but as the first speaker took the podium, there were still hundreds huddled in the lobby awaiting a quiet moment to squeeze into the packed hall.

By the time ILIR Chairman Niall O’Dowd took the stage to introduce Father John McCarthy from the Irish Pastoral Center, there was over 1,000 crammed into the hall — all with change on their mind. The count at the door where everyone signed in was 1,015, to be exact.

“This is the time to change the immigration laws,” said McCarthy. “The undocumented here are living in a constant state of anxiety, battling it alone.

“A parent dies in Ireland, but their child is afraid to return to Ireland in fear that they won’t get back. We deal with the effects of this, depression, alcoholism, and suicide at the Irish Pastoral Center. It is a terrible crisis, but all is not lost.”

McCarthy, a recent addition to the Boston Irish scene, was at the first ILIR meeting in Manhattan in December. He said the fire he saw in the crowd that night was seen again in Yonkers, in Philadelphia and now in Boston. With each meeting, he said, the ILIR hit a stronger stride, strengthened by their numbers and the will of the undocumented.

Though it is only two months old, ILIR has had astonishing growth. With several meetings planned in the next few weeks, the organization’s phone lines are constantly alight with volunteers offering to help.

“The response from the Irish community has been tremendous. There was a real need for this organization,” said ILIR Executive Director Kelly Fincham.

ILIR was set up to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of the estimated 40,000 undocumented Irish in the U.S. At their inaugural meeting in the Affinia hotel in Manhattan, the organizers pledged their support for the Kennedy McCain immigration reform bill, which is currently awaiting debate in the Senate.

“The U.S. government is expected to enact new immigration legislation in 2006. The ILIR will be fighting for the voice of the Irish,” explained Fincham.

Though Senator Edward Kennedy could not attend the Boston ILIR meeting, he did take the time to send a letter to the crowd promising that he was there in spirit if not in body.

“I commend (ILIR) for their leading role in the current debate on immigration, and I wish I could be there in person for this significant event,” Kennedy said in his letter.

“There is no question that our federal immigration laws are broken. But now, with your help, we have the best opportunity in years to fix them, and that’s what John McCain and I are trying to do.”

McCarthy said Kennedy would have been delighted to see the crowd he was looking at in the meeting. “Not until we see these immigrants freed will we see this hardship end,” said McCarthy before giving the stage over to O’Dowd, founder and chairman of ILIR.

“You might have walked in here undocumented, but you leave a political activist,” said O’Dowd to rapturous applause.

“Your green card will not be mailed to you, you have to get out and work for it, and this is where it starts,” he added.

Asking the enraptured audience to call Senators Kennedy and John Kerry to offer thanks for their stance on the issue, O’Dowd encouraged those in attendance to contact their friends in other states to put pressure on the senators who haven’t supported the McCain Kennedy bill.

He also urged them to come to Washington on Wednesday, March 8 for the ILIR lobby day to plead their case personally to the politicians.

ILIR co-founder Ciaran Staunton, a familiar face to most Boston Irish through his days with the Boston Irish Immigration Reform Movement (IIRM), took the stage to loud applause.

“The baby who screams the loudest gets fed the quickest,” he shouted as the crowd clapped.

A founder member of the IIRM in the 1980s, Staunton says they were told then they didn’t know what they were doing.

“And we didn’t,” he said, “but we produced 48,000 visas for the Irish.”

Holding nothing back, Staunton slammed the podium.

“I don’t want to hear it can’t be done. Where there is a will there is a way,” he said.

Referring to the current climate of criticizing immigrants Staunton said, “It’s time to stand up to this immigrant bashing. Irish people have nothing to be ashamed of, every time this country has asked us to stand up we have been there.

“The only creature that hangs its head down low is the sheep. And don’t insult our immigrant dead. They paid too high a price and nobody asked for their Social Security number when they went out to die for this country,” said Staunton as the crowd clapped loudly.

Staunton insisted that the month of March was crucial for the effort, and that no meetings between Irish and U.S. political leaders should be taken up on anything other than the undocumented issue.

“I want every Irish political party to come here this St. Patrick’s Day and have this issue on the front burner,” he said.

O’Dowd stated that McCain/Kennedy was not the only option ILIR was looking into. There could be other remedies for the undocumented Irish, but no matter what ILIR would do their best to get some change.

But change had already come, said Irish Embassy First Secretary Joe Hackett.

“The politicians we are talking to on Capitol Hill were not hearing about the undocumented Irish problem, but in just two months because of the work of ILIR and the undocumented themselves turning out those politicians are saying there really is a problem,” said Hackett, who traveled from Washington, D.C. to attend the meeting.

“Immigration reform has not been as high up on the agenda in years as it is now. You couldn’t write the history of Boston without the Irish immigrant. You couldn’t write the history of America without the Irish. The undocumented are the next part of that history and deserve their chapter to be written. Your voice must be heard.”

Hackett spoke about the bill sponsored by Congressman James Sensenbrenner and passed by the House of Representatives before Christmas that would make it a criminal offense to be an undocumented alien.

“If Sensenbrenner were to become law it would make the undocumented lives unbearable. The next stage now is that the Senate will have a debate in March and both bills will be up for discussion. We aim for as much of Kennedy McCain as possible to end up in a final bill,” Hackett said.

The issue is of such importance, Hackett added, that the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) would be discussing the issue in depth with President George W. Bush on St. Patrick’s Day at the White House.

When Fincham took the stage, she said that though times are challenging for the undocumented, nothing was lost yet.

“This is the year to win the battle once and for all,” she said to the clapping audience. “The U.S. government needs to hear your voices.”

When the last two speakers took the podium, undocumented New Yorkers Samantha and Mary, there was a palpable air of anticipation in the room.

“It’s only been two months, but it’s a hope,” said Samantha. “We love America, we’re proud to be here and we are only ones who can do this,” she said as the crowd erupted.

“Let’s take our lives in our own hands. It’s up to us; we are going to make our voices heard. And please God we will get the green card.”

Mary, who has graduated with honors in nursing but cannot get a nursing job in New York because she is undocumented, said all she wanted was to live her life to its fullest potential, something robbed from her because she is undocumented.

“We need this for us, for our children and for our children’s children,” she said.

As the crowd dispersed after the meeting, one thing was sure. Every political representative in New England was not only going to be waking up to a huge fall of snow on Monday morning but also a blizzard of calls seeking immigration change.