Hispanics Hit Back

THE Hispanic lobby finally appears to be hitting its stride on the immigration issue, and about time too.

For months Hispanic leaders had allowed the anti-immigrant forces to hog the airwaves, but with Hispanic votes now coming center stage the lobby has begun to hit back.

Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, wrote a wonderful op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal which pointed up the fact that anti-immigrant candidates such as Mitt Romney have actually lost big by focusing on the issue.

"How is this possible? How could John McCain, the author of the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration bill, beat Mitt Romney, who aired anti-illegal-immigrant commercials more than 12,000 times in Iowa and New Hampshire alone?" she wrote.

Rosales points out that in Florida Romney lost the Hispanic American vote by 5-1, and it cost him the state. Additionally, she says exit polls in New Hampshire, Iowa and Florida showed that even a majority of Republicans favor either temporary resident status or a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented.

"However, the backlash to Mr. Romney's rhetoric was predictable from the beginning. In 22 national public opinion polls conducted last year, 50%-83% of Americans supported some type of pathway to legalization for undocumented workers," Rosales wrote.

"In almost every competitive race in the 2006 congressional elections that matched an anti-immigration candidate against one that supported comprehensive immigration reform, the anti-immigrant candidate lost."

Pro-immigrant groups have been waiting a long time for such straight talk from the Hispanic lobby, which was strangely quiet over the past few months.

On Monday night there was anther example of the renewed Hispanic push. Janet Murguia, president of La Raza, the main Hispanic lobbying group, was on the notorious Lou Dobbs Show on CNN defending her community against the extraordinary number of racist comments and remarks that are made on that program.

Dobbs was utterly floored by Murguia, who brought along a message boards depicting the racist comments in the past by several of his guests that he has tried to pass off as legitimate spokespeople. Many were so close to neo-Nazis as to make no difference.

A True Pioneer Passes

HIS many American friends will deeply mourn the recent death of Brendan O'Regan, inventor of the first ever airport Duty Free Shop and well as being the founder of Cooperation Ireland, Shannon Development and the Peace Institute at the University of Limerick. O'Regan died aged 90 last week.

O'Regan was an extraordinary figure who first promoted developing the Shannon region as the hub of Ireland's midwest. The tens of thousands of jobs he brought to the Shannon region will be his testament.

He was very well known to leading Irish Americans, many of whom he introduced to Ireland. He was instrumental in having Chuck Feeney, the billionaire philanthropist who has invested heavily in Ireland, first become involved there.

He also set up the Shannon College of Hotel Management and was the founder of many initiatives which brought about the betterment of the midwest.

During the same period, he traveled to the U.S. to seek new business and returned with an active commitment to promote Shannon as a center for tourism, airfreight and industry.

It was his pioneering vision of the development of hotels and amenities in support of tourism that led to his appointment, in 1957, as chairman of the Irish Tourist Board, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1973.

During the late fifties O'Regan also established the Shannon Castle Tours operation, incorporating the renowned mediaeval banquets at Bunratty Castle. It was also during this time that he was appointed chair of Ireland's only regional economic development agency, Shannon Development Company.

In 1978, O'Regan founded Cooperation North (now Cooperation Ireland), a non-denominational and non-party organization with the goal of overcoming violence and unemployment through widespread and ongoing economic, cultural and social co-operation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

In 1984, he established the Irish Peace Institute at the University of Limerick. The aim of the Institute is to promote peace and reconciliation on the island of Ireland, and to draw on conflict resolution in order to learn lessons that could inform other conflicts. He will be deeply missed.

Giants' Irish Ties

SUPER Bowl winners the New York Giants were the only team in the NFL to fly a foreign flag over their stadium in addition to the Stars and Stripes.

That was the Irish Tricolor, in deference to the team's original owners, the Mara family, especially family patriarch Wellington Mara who was a dedicated Irishman if ever there was one.

Mara was honored as one of Irish America magazine's Top 100 and also was honored by the American Ireland Fund. He left the team in good hands when he passed away. His sons and the Tisch family no doubt did him proud last weekend.

Other Irish links include coach Tom Coughlin and center Shaun O'Hara, who are both named in this year's Irish America magazine Top 100 Irish Americans. After last week's dramatic win they certainly deserve all the honors they can get.

Of course, Giants Stadium was also the location of one of the greatest Irish sporting victories ever when Ireland defeated red-hot favorites Italy 1-0 in the World Cup in 1994.