Questioning Politicians

It’s has been all over Google for the last two days; New York Daily News, NY, Worcester Telegram, MA and USA Today. Ciaran Staunton, one of the heads of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, in the US, confronted one of the contenders for the presidential election, Mitt Romney, on his “flip flop” approach to immigration.

This is the kind of tactic which we need to use more, as a group. The politicians are answerable to us, the people. Let’s start asking them for answers. As we all know too well issues can fall better the floorboards and be ignored. It’s our job to constantly remind OUR politician who they’re working for: our friends and family.

Call your local politicians and ask them what they’re doing for your friends and families or even better call Bertie Ahern and Dermot Ahern and ask them exactly when we can expect the “action” which they promised us back in November 2007.



New York Daily News, NY

Queens Republican pours immigration anger on Mitt Romney before debate
BY RICHARD SISK
Sunday, January 6th 2008, 4:00 AM

DERRY, N.H. - Mitt Romney's friendly warmup for the big debate Saturday turned into a dustup over immigration with a Queens saloon keeper, who toted a "No Irish Need Apply" sign.
"Have you no shame?" asked Ciaran Staunton, 44, of Sunnyside, who posed the first query at Romney's "Ask Mitt Anything" session with about 200 fans.

Staunton accused Romney of switching to a hard-line stance against immigration. He said there were 50,000 to 60,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in the U.S., "many of them mothers and fathers of American children. Just remember that they're human beings."

Romney shot back that "we simply cannot take all the people in the world who want to come to America.

"We're going to enforce the law," Romney said. "I love legal immigration, but I want to end illegal immigration."

Romney has called for border fences, biometric ID cards and cuts in federal funds to cities that fail to track illegal immigrants. He has accused Rudy Giuliani of running a "sanctuary city" as New York City's mayor.

Staunton, who runs O'Neill's pub on Third Ave., drove up to confront Romney with his sign, which stood out in the sea of supporters.

Bob Connal, 48, of Derry, backed Romney's stance and said when he travels on business to Texas, "nobody speaks English" in restaurants.