Boston’s undocumented Irish immigrants continue to push for a comprehensive immigration bill that will grant a path to citizenship for the estimated 10,000 Irish immigrants in the city, despite the House Republicans rejection of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in July.

“We’ve sent busloads of Irish to Washington,” said Kieran O’Sullivan, immigration and citizenship advisor at Dorchester’s Irish Pastoral Center, told WGBH News.

O’Sullivan added that the Irish may help to bridge the gap of the “us versus them” mentality towards Hispanic immigrants in the immigration debate, and that for the Irish, being white, native English speakers removes many of the barriers to cultural assimilation that other immigrants often encounter.

Boston-based, Irish immigration advocacy groups such as IPC and the Irish International Immigration Center are joining forces under Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition to advocate for immigration reform.

One of the highest Irish-concentrated cities in the nation, Boston has an estimated 16 percent of its citizens claiming Irish ancestry.

Congress passed a series of visa programs that eased the path to citizenship for Irish immigrants in the 1980s and 90s. According to Sullivan, many of these Irish immigrants arrived in Boston on a student, visitor, or temporary work visa and overstayed their visas after finding work as nannies, bartenders or laborers and they risk deportation if they leave the United States and attempt re-entry.

Hugh Meehan, chairman for the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform, told WGBH News that there are an estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants living in the U.S.

“Immigrants are not going anywhere – what we need to do is document the people that are here,” Meehan said.

Meehan said they have gained the support of several conservative lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who proposed legislation that would grant 10,500 special work visas for Irish immigrants.

Irish International Immigrant Center executive director Ronnie Millar said that Irish American politician feel a close connection to their Irish roots.

“When all of these politicians, like Joe Biden or Representative Richard Neal, hear this rally call – especially from Irish organizations- it really resonates. We may not have numbers, but I think it’s important that the Irish continue our influence.

“This is an opportunity for immigrants of all backgrounds. Now, we say that with an Irish accent, but we say it loud and clearly.”

The Unionist marching season includes about 2,300 marches across Northern Ireland. The Republican marching season includes about 70 marches usually clustered around Easter Rising commemoration ceremonies and held in their own communities.

It is important to place the marches from the different communities in perspective when discussing the outrageous activities around the 2013 marching season.

People calling for a ban on all marches equate the two communities as similar, but that is far from the truth.

Marching has always been a Unionist weapon of expressing their supremacy, and fond hopes that marches would eventually become just cultural symbols of diminishing significance, alas, have not panned out.

Many of the Unionist marches are not controversial and are held in their own neighborhoods, but there are an increasing number that seek to march through or infringe on Nationalist areas where residents want no lambeg drums beating or triumphalist chants, often from inebriated participants.

What changed this year was that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) stepped up to the mark and carried out the law to the letter when dealing with rogue marches and marchers.

That was a huge change and very important for the future of the North.

There is no more visible example of a successful peace process than a police force that protects both communities equally.

In recent years the PSNI had been seen to favor the Orange marchers, but this year that changed dramatically and scores of their police force were injured defending Nationalist neighborhoods from banned marches.

If there is a silver lining in the marches debacle that is it. It was an important boost for Nationalist community confidence in the relatively new police force.

Otherwise it is easy to despair at the lack of political foresight in unionism, which each year allows the marchers to trek into the same dead end politically where they seem to be at the mercy of the ugliest tendencies within their community.

Where is the leadership in all that? Where is the need to take an international view and see the damage that is being done to Northern Ireland overseas with the gory images of police being stoned, masked mobs roaming at will and massive property damage?

Alas, every summer it seems the mob mentality rules and the Unionist politicians duck for cover.
The reality is that the Orange Order, once the touchstone of political power in Unionist Northern Ireland, is quickly disappearing as a result of these riots.

The days when all top positions in Northern Ireland were filled by men who swore allegiance to that order are gone.