IRA Men Need Legal Status

In an ill-timed move, Bush administration officials have begun to make it harder for the former IRA men to renew their parole conditions and have even hinted at efforts to remove the men from the U.S. because there is now peace in Ireland.

The former prisoners have now banded together to form an organization called Thar Saile, Irish for overseas,which has launched a broad based education and communications campaign around their issue.

It is beyond time that permanent legal status, as well as the right to live, work and travel, is given to these men who helped secure the peace process.

Efforts by the Bush administration to remove the men’s parole status, however, seem to have increased. That would be a grave mistake and would force these men under ground again — maybe to becoming recruiting sergeants for anti-peace process sentiment still active in some circles in the U.S.

The original parole needs not to be terminated but made permanent. The men are technically still in “deferred action” status, which was granted them in 2000 by the Clinton administration. That means that they are forced to reapply several times a year to have their status continued,a completely unnecessary hassle that wears deeply on their families.

This is in stark contrast to the status of former paramilitary prisoners in Britain and Ireland. Over there, former paramilitaries have benefited from the outbreak of peace by being released from jail and being allowed to resume normal lives.

America should do no less for the IRA members over here. It is a positive aspect of the peace process, part of the moving on and healing process that is so vital.

It is also dangerous territory to try and change their parole status in a negative way. Trying to move against them at a time when several splinter IRA groups are still trying to restart hostilities is not a smart move. Yet there are signs, especially in the Pol Brennan case, that that is exactly what U.S. authorities are doing.

Brennan is one of those on parole. He was recently picked up in Texas at a checkpoint designed to catch illegal immigrants. Despite his parolee status he has been held ever since, and efforts to deport him seem underway.

In effect, the parole allowed former IRA members who had fled to America to make their lives here. Many of those concerned had played leading roles in convincing activist Irish American opinion to support the peace process.

For the men concerned, about a dozen in all, it was a welcome respite from lives of great fear haunted always by the reality that they could be deported in an instant if they were somehow discovered.

Many had come over during the early years of the Troubles and had built lives and families in America. The peace process became a major boost for them in securing their futures. Indeed, it was one of the most welcome by products of the process.

Now it appears to be in jeopardy again. The reality is that the men deserve their chance at a normal life in America.

It is time the Bush administration came to terms with that and made it happen.