15. The Land of Liberty

© Robbie O’Connell 1986 Slievenamon Music (BMI)

Illegal immigrants or undocumented workers are in the news a lot lately due to the draconian measures illegally exacted upon them by the xenophobic Trump administration. However, the USA has historically turned a blind eye to such transgressions in order to maintain a labor force that will work for less than the minimum wage and is not likely to demand additional benefits. Hiring undocumented workers is particularly common in areas such as agriculture, landscaping, and construction, as well as other jobs that require long hours of tedious physical labor. The practice is so well established now that many economists predict that a mass deportation of undocumented workers would inevitably lead to a disastrous economic crash.

For the most part, these are the jobs that Americans don’t want to do. So for many years an uneasy balance existed between the need for cheap labor and the need to enforce the existing laws. The understanding seemed to be that brown-skinned foreigners were fine as long as they worked for low wages and stayed out of trouble. It was akin slavery without ownership with the unspoken threat of being turned over to ICE used as the whip. The racist undertones were not hard to see. The darker your skin color or the more foreign your accent, the more precarious your position.

However, not all immigrants are from tropical countries. According to Matthew O’Brien,¹ there were an estimated tens of thousands to potentially over 100,000 undocumented Irish immigrants in the USA during the 1990s, though precise figures are difficult to assess due to the hidden nature of undocumented populations. During the late 1980s, one-fifth to one-quarter of Irish citizens who entered on temporary visas overstayed their terms, and this trend continued into the 1990s, with some estimates placing the illegal Irish population in the US between 100,000 and 150,000. Building sites in places like New York, Chicago, and Boston, hired thousands of undocumented Irish workers. Irish themed pubs too were frequently manned by Irish barmen and musicians still seeking “Green Cards.” While this arrangement may have temporarily solved their economic problems with a regular wage, they found themselves trapped.

It was not just the threat of being turned over to INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service before it became ICE in 2003). They could not leave the USA to visit family or attend weddings and funerals for fear of being turned away upon attempting to return. Such an eventuality could lead to a prolonged separation from their loved ones, not to mention their source of income. The irony of living like a prisoner in the land of liberty was not lost on me. It inspired this song.

The Land of Liberty

© Robbie O’Connell 1986 Slievenamon Music (BMI)

LYRICS

It’s been more than seven years now, since he left his native home
It wasn’t easy just to turn his back on all he’d ever known.
But he’d burned all his bridges, there was nowhere left to turn,
The only choice remaining was to leave the fire or burn.

Chorus:
Oh it’s strange, the way he feels
Oh it’s strange, the way he feels
For he’s caught between the devil and the deep blue sea
Living like a prisoner in the land of liberty.

Now he can only do the work that no one else will do
And they say that it’s illegal, that he never paid his dues.
But they like to have cheap labor, so they look the other way
To feed and clothe his family, he works sixteen hours a day.

Sometimes they ask him why he won’t go back to his own land
But he won’t talk about it, he says they wouldn’t understand.
For no matter where or when, there comes a time for every man,
When he must do what must be done, and the consequence be damned.

1. O’Brien, Matthew J. “Ethnic Legacy and Immigrant Mobility: the New Irish and Irish America in the 1990s.” In: Études irlandaises, n°28 n°2, 2003. L’Irlande et les Etats-Unis au 20e siècle, sous la direction de Carle Bonafous-Murat et Wesley Hutchinson. pp. 119-133.