US immigration: ‘I’m desperate to show my kids where we are from’

Neil, a 42-year-old construction worker living in Chicago, Obama’s home town, plans to be first in the queue when the application process starts next spring for a new legal status to be introduced for four million undocumented workers.

A native of Buncrana, Co Donegal, Neil has been living illegally in the United States since August 1995. So too has his wife Sandra. He last visited Ireland in 2001 "to bury my father", he said. His wife's last trip home was in 2000.

As parents to two US-born child citizens and as two people in the US for more than five years, Neil and his wife are among the illegal immigrants who will qualify under Barack Obama’s presidential orders shielding them from deportation.

“We were obviously, like everyone else, glued to the television,” he said of the president’s televised announcement on Thursday night. “I am very optimistic that something will come out of this, and we will be able to travel home. This is the best news that we have had since we came here.”

Neil has no criminal record, is fully paid up on his taxes and social security, and has his own health insurance, so he is the typical immigrant hurt by the “broken” immigration system that Obama wants to help.

He fears that Republicans in Congress, who claim that the president is acting illegally, could block the orders. "We just hope that Congress won't repeal it. I am worried that they will fight it and it will be put on the back burner," he said.

The big question for Neil and his wife is whether they can return to Ireland for the first time in more than a decade under the president’s executive orders, which bypass the Republicans. “This morning I woke up and there was definitely a spring in my step,” he said, after watching Obama’s address.

“I’m hopeful that maybe I can to go on to AerLingus.com and book a flight home.”

The Obama administration has yet to clarify how exactly it plans to relax the rules that block immigrants who have overstayed short-term visas – and who qualify for the new temporary legal status – to return home and travel in and out of the US.

“We are not sure of what the travel arrangements are – if Sandra will be able to visit her mum and dad and me, my mum,” he said. His main hope is to bring his children to Ireland for the first time.

"They are as Irish as you and me – we even watch Love/Hate over here," he said. "They have never been to Ireland. That is the hurting part. I am desperate, desperate just to get back to show my kids where we are from."

Another undocumented Irish man in Chicago, Gerry (39), will also likely benefit from Obama’s rules, given that he has been living, working and paying taxes in the US for 20 years. Unable to visit home, he had to watch his grandfather deteriorate from illness and his subsequent funeral online via Skype in 2012.

He is waiting to see whether the measures will allow him to return home for the first time in 14 years by waiving the 10- year bar he would have faced on this return to Ireland for outstaying a temporary visa.

He has all the paperwork ready to go, he says. “As soon as they lift the bar I can apply,” he said. “All I want to do is see my parents and be together for one Christmas or one summer holiday. If you can get that, you can go home in the morning.”