Five years after 9/11, all roads in the US continue to lead to the World Trade Center. This week, President Bush was back on that well-trodden path, warning in several speeches of looming disaster if Americans failed to heed the lessons of what was wrought there five years ago, writes Niall O'Dowd.
Osama bin Laden made a miraculous reappearance in those remarks, mentioned 17 times in one speech. He was compared to Lenin and Hitler, and Bush tried to appear Churchillian in his determination to fight him to the bitter end.
Bush knows his party is on the ropes in the upcoming elections and scaring voters by playing the bin Laden card is the best plan to reverse the trend.
It might work. Lurking at the back of every American's mind is the fear that sooner or later 9/11 will happen again. It is the Banquo's ghost at every gathering of Democrats looking forward to victory in November.
The White House is on a mission to "scare Americans into believing that limp-wristed Democrats will curtsey to Islamic radicals and Iranian tyrants", Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times this week. Why not? It worked in 2004 when Vietnam War hero John Kerry was successfully portrayed as just that. Seconds anyone? The new and intense focus on security in the shadow of what happened on 9/11 also claimed another casualty this week. The immigration reform bill which had passed through the Senate in impressive fashion is now officially dead on arrival at the House of Representatives.
It was pronounced so by a Republican leadership in the House which has seized on anti-immigrant sentiment as a lifeline for their embattled congressional candidates this autumn.
Posturing about stopping illegal immigration fits nicely into the "all security all the time" message that the Republicans and the president have been spreading.
They know their stance is poison among Hispanic voters and that they are opposing their own president on the issue, but they are gambling that Middle America agrees with them.
The 40,000 undocumented Irish are losers in all this as are the other estimated 12 million undocumented who call America home.
Since 9/11 there has been a major crackdown on illegal immigration. Where once it was possible for illegals to travel back and forth between Ireland and the US, that has now become impossible. It is also now impossible to secure a driving licence without a valid social security number, which illegals do not possess. The new restrictions on people who lived in a shadow world anyway have only driven them further into the shade.
The upshot is that since 9/11 illegals have been living lives of quiet but increasing desperation. Undocumented people and their supporters, including many Irish, took to the streets in their millions earlier this year to rally for comprehensive immigration reform. Despite long odds the rallying paid off and a bill was passed through the Senate and was backed by the White House. Under its provisions almost all Irish undocumented would have been able to become legal.
The House version of the same bill had been entirely draconian, offering no path to legality and criminalising those who wanted to help the illegals, including doctors and clergy.
It was always a long shot that both bills could be reconciled, but after passage of the Senate bill and the mass demonstrations across the country by the undocumented and their supporters, there seemed to be a fighting chance as pressure mounted for immigration reform.
That has now gone for this year, victim of Republican calculations. However, if control of the House of Representatives passes from Republicans to Democrats, then sunnier climes for immigration reform may beckon. A leading Republican strategist this week stated that it was now 75 per cent certain that the Democrats would, in fact, take the House. It is no given, though, as a White House onslaught begins in order to keep Republicans in charge of all three branches of legislative government.
Even with a Democratic-controlled House, and possibly a Democratic Senate, immigration reform remains a very tough assignment. It is an issue that inflames the passions on both sides and one that Democrats may be leery of grabbing hold of if they become the majority.
All of which has created a rethink among many Irish activists as to how the issue of immigration reform for their community should be pursued. Even with passage of the current bill, only undocumented would be helped and the continuing reality that only a handful of Irish could ever come to the US legally in future would continue. The bare facts are startling. Out of 1.2 million green cards given out last year, Ireland received just over 2,000. The recent figures from the 2005 census showed that the number of Irish-born in America is now at a historic low.
There are just 128,000 Irish-born now, down from 156,000 only five years ago and from more than 2 million in 1890.
The inability of Irish people to emigrate legally to America will have serious consequences for both countries in the long run. Currently, Irish organisations in the US such as the GAA are barely staying afloat. Irish neighbourhoods are slowly dying out and there is a deathwatch under way for many older Irish organisations no longer able to attract new members. Irish-born influence in Irish-American organisations has always been out of proportion to their numbers. Now that influence is on the wane.
Those in Ireland who believe that emigration is over and that the Celtic Tiger has the cure for all ills should note that Ireland has a well-documented history of emigration trails every 30 years or so, the last one being in the mid-1980s. What goes around may come around.
Should Ireland care? Most definitely. A vibrant Irish-American community capable of packing political clout when necessary is critical - note the American role in the Irish peace process and the Irish-American role in creating US investment in Ireland.
Ireland without its vibrant Irish-American diaspora is a shrunken country, no longer capable in the long run of sustaining the massive influence it currently enjoys in so many fields in the most powerful nation on earth.
Niall O'Dowd is founder of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and founding publisher of Irish Voice newspaper