By Debbie McGoldrick

IT’S not easy being a 7-year-old on the cusp of a big day, Holy Communion, knowing that the one guest who matters most, an undocumented aunt in America, won’t be able to travel home for the festivities.

Little Chloe McLoughlin knows her aunt, and her undocumented uncle, only because she travels to San Francisco every year with her mom to see them. “We are very, very close,” said Chloe’s mom Gemma. “We are only having 10 people at the Communion. It won’t feel much like a celebration with our family not being able to travel from America.

“But we go every year to San Francisco. We have no money because we’re constantly saving for trips!”

Gemma’s brother and sister are well settled on the West Coast. “They’ve made their lives in America. They won’t come back here, “ she said. “We had an uncle who had cancer last year and they were desperate to come home, but we told them not to. Their lives would be finished if they were denied entry back to the U.S.”

The families and friends of the undocumented Irish who attended the first ILIR rally in Ireland last Saturday all had similar tales of woe. Missing big family celebrations, not being able to mourn deaths, an inability to travel for any reason at all . . . the daily hardships of the undocumented have taken an equally taxing toll on those they’ve left behind in Ireland.

Paddy O’Neill from Kilkenny has twin sons who are undocumented in New York. They work in construction and are supremely happy with their lives in America; one is even getting married in October. If only that had that golden visa, their sad dad laments.

“We visit two or three times a year, but it’s always hard,” said O’Neill, who feels that the Irish government needs to exert more pressure on the U.S. so that the Irish can become legalized.

“The Irish built America and have been going there for years. Why should that stop?” he asked. “Now we have U.S. military planes landing in Shannon Airport on their way to Iraq. I think we should get visas for that. You scratch our back, and we’ll scratch yours!”

Aidan and Brideen Hickey, from Clontarf in Co. Dublin, feel the constant strain of separation from their daughter Deirdre, who lives in New York City. “Her grandmother died and she couldn’t come home,” said Aidan. “There have been weddings, funerals, you name it. It’s just very, very hard.”

Anna Rose Doherty from Co. Donegal and Maura McKenna from Co. Monaghan made the trip to Dublin for good reason – their baby grandson Luke, recently born in New York to their children Caroline and Brian, who’ve lived in the U.S. for several years. The ladies held up a poster with Luke’s adorable face, wondering if he’d ever be able to return to the land of his parent’s birth.

“It was very hard leaving,” said Doherty, who recently visited her grandchild in New York. “It’s sad because we’ll miss so much of his growing up. We all went out for Brian and Caroline’s wedding in 2005, but these trips are getting harder and harder, especially now that there’s a baby involved.”

Dave Meade stood up and addressed the ILIR meeting in support of his daughter Samantha in New York, who attempted to return to Ireland with her husband Liam some years back, only to discover that they couldn’t settle.

“I told Sam, this is not your home, America is your home,” said Meade. “Coming to this meeting today, my biggest fear was that there would be a paltry attendance. But I am so happy now. I see that all the politicians are totally behind us. It just means so much to us as families.”

Samantha’s sister Elizabeth has been to the U.S. seven times to see her sister. “We are very close,” said Elizabeth. “Our niece is making her confirmation in a few weeks, and Sam is her sponsor. She is so upset that Sam won’t be able to make it home. So by default I’ll be her sponsor. It’s hard to see her having to miss all of these family events.”

The strong show of support at the ILIR rally in Dublin will send a powerful signal to the undocumented here that, far from being forgotten about, their families are prepared to wage an all-out battle to secure their legal status. Meade and other supporters are now in the process of setting up an ILIR branch in Ireland.

“The families in Ireland often wonder what they can do for those in America, but today they’ve shown that they’ve already done it,” said Ciaran Staunton, vice chairman of ILIR. “They got on the phone, they called their politicians, they drove from all over Ireland to make their presence felt. And they’ll keep going until we reach our goal.”