By NiallO’Dowd

“HOW Green Was My Rally” was the title of an editorial in The New York Times on Sunday about the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR).

The piece was written by Lawrence Downes, who had attended the ILIR rally for Senator Charles Schumer on the previous Friday evening in Woodlawn.

That rally was a huge success, with over 1,000 cramming into St. Barnabas Church. Senator Schumer made plain that a new era had arrived with a Democratic controlled House and Senate that was much more favorably inclined towards immigration reform.

Sunday’s piece marks the second time within the past year that The Times has focused on extensively on ILIR. In March the paper ran a front page article about the group’s initial meetings and the huge, positive response from the community.

It is a tribute to ILIR that they have become such a factor in the movement to achieve immigration reform that The Times, the nation’s top newspaper, is paying so much attention.

However, both the March article and Sunday’s editorial made much of the fact that the Irish lobby appeared to be ignoring the other ethnic groups fighting for immigration reform.

Such an assertion is manifestly untrue, as anyone who has attended national rallies by immigration umbrella groups across the country over the past year has seen. ILIR has been represented at most of them, and has had speakers at the major rallies. ILIR is also a member of the largest umbrella lobby group, Comprehensive Immigration Reform Now (CIRNow).

Incidentally, CIRNow is funded to the tune of millions by Atlantic Philanthropies, whose benefactor, Charles Feeney, is a member of the advisory board of ILIR. So much for Irish Americans not pitching in to help other ethnic groups.

The main objection in the editorial piece appeared to be that the slogan “Legalize the Irish” did not include other nationalities. It might be a rather large t-shirt if ILIR had followed the advice and included the 170 other countries or so who all need relief from the crushing burden of current immigration law. Then the group would probably forget Chad or some other country with illegals here, and leave itself open to further criticism.

In the politically correct universe of The New York Times it is not good enough for a white ethnic community to stand up and proclaim its need to help its own by achieving immigration reform.

There preferably must always be a “Kumbya” moment when we join hands with all the other forgotten ethnic groups and go forward together.

Such platitudes ignores the reality of immigration reform politics. Each ethnic group has a strength that it must play to. The Latino lobby marshaled millions of their people to take to the streets earlier this year in a move that put immigration reform center stage.

The Irish lobby, much smaller in numbers, marshaled those politicians in key Senate seats and congressional districts that it has had influence over to support the overall immigration reform package bill put together by Senators Edward Kennedy and John McCain.

That was how Senator Schumer and Senator Hillary Clinton first announced support for the bill, and how Senator McCain could proclaim that the Irish lobby changed the minds of several key senators on the issue.

In a strange way ILIR is a victim of its success, having been singled out because it is able to reach in to some powerful politicians.

However, it is up to every other immigrant group to do the same, in their own way, in the battle for immigration reform. As we face into the new session of Congress early in the New Year, it will take a concerted effort by all the immigrant lobbies to pass reform.

Whether that involves hand holding and feel good platitudes, or charging hard and changing the political dynamic by playing to all our strengths will soon be seen.