【英语语言学习】移民政策需要做出改变

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE¹: Gerry is a 40-year-old bricklayer who lives in a suburb of Chicago. He doesn't want his last name used because he snuck into the country 21 years ago across the Canadian border with a fake driver's license² and stayed. Now he's married with 5-year-old son. He owns a small masonry³ business with six employees. One is a Mexican man who's also in Chicago illegally.

Do you feel a kinship with the undocumented Mexican worker on your crew?

GERRY: Yeah. He's got family, and he's worried about his family. He's traveling from - into the city to the job, and he's probably worse off than me because he probably doesn't have a license.

BURNETT: Gerry is muscular from hauling bricks all day and coaching soccer at night. He wears a gold ring in one ear. He's sitting outside of a sandwich shop beside a busy street. Chicago has been good to him. He owns a house and a company. He's taken his wife on vacation to Las Vegas and New Orleans. If he'd stayed in County Tipperary, Ireland, he probably would've taken over his parents' milk delivery business. Gerry says he's speaking out because he wants people to know that the immigration system in this country is so broken it affects him and his Mexican employee alike. Gerry may feel more accepted and less of a target because he's Irish, but when he talks about his life in America, he sounds like many Latin American immigrants.

GERRY: I want them to see that we're hardworking people. And we're here to make a living, not to take anybody's jobs.

BURNETT: Gerry does not live in the shadows. Chicago is a sanctuary⁴ city. He knows if he gets stopped, the police are not supposed to share his information with immigration authorities.

GERRY: In Chicago, if you obey the law, you'll be fine.

BURNETT: But like other immigrants who don't have papers to be here, he says he has to stay out of trouble.

GERRY: Saturday night, I went to a party, maybe an hour from here. I drove out, a couple of my friends came with me, never touched a drop until I came back closer to home, parked my car, went into the bar and had a few drinks and then got a taxi home.

BURNETT: Gerry is one of an estimated 50,000 Irish who are not authorized⁵ to be in this country, according to the Irish Embassy in Washington. Most of them are visa over-stayers, and most live in the large Irish populations of New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. There are some 33 million Americans of Irish descent, the second most Euro-Americans behind German-Americans. The U.S. and Ireland boast of a special relationship. Every St. Patrick's Day, the White House even dyes the fountain on the South Lawn green. Whether that special friendship influences immigration removals is hard to say. Last year, nearly 177,000 Mexicans were deported⁶. Thirty-three Irish were sent home.

ANNE ANDERSON: The number of deportations is relatively⁷ small. I think it's probably accurate to say that they don't fit the profile that people consider for the undocumented.

BURNETT: Anne Anderson is the Irish ambassador in Washington. She says, despite the relatively small numbers, the undocumented Irish in America are significant for a small country like Ireland, with only four and a half million people. The embassy and prominent Irish-Americans periodically urge the U.S. government to push ahead with immigration reform. She says it would benefit the entire unauthorized population, not just Latinos, who get most of the attention.

ANDERSON: We want people to understand that this is a multifaceted problem. It's an issue that also wears an Irish face.

BURNETT: Like all foreign nationals living in the U.S. illegally, Gerry faces locked-in syndrome⁸. He cannot leave the country because he'll be denied re-entry. He hasn't been back to the Emerald Isle⁹ in 16 years. When his grandfather, a greyhound trainer, died three years ago, Gerry attended the wake from Chicago, virtually.

GERRY: It's an old tradition in Ireland, like, when they're in their house, everybody goes to their house. So I was on Skype to everybody. Everybody was there, coming in and out, which was great. But at the same time, you know, it wasn't good enough, you know what I mean?

BURNETT: It's instructive to remember that in the late 1800s, Irish immigrants who came to America to flee the famine were stereotyped¹⁰ as a sub-class of clannish¹¹, bedraggled, no-good drunks who had too many babies. Working-class Americans resented Irish laborers¹² who drove down wages. Signs stating, no Irish need apply, were common in Boston. Today, America loves the Irish and its Irish heritage. Perhaps, there's history lesson here. John Burnett, NPR News, Chicago.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NO IRISH NEED APPLY")

THE WEAVERS¹³: (Singing) No Irish need apply. Whoa says I, but that's an insult, though to get the place, I'll try. So I went to see the blaggard with his...

 

Copyright © 2015 NPR.

 

* My mother was an Irish 'illegal immigrant'. She immigrated¹⁴ with her family legally to Canada in 1926. However, a couple of years later, she and her family crossed the border into the United States without documents. They were illegal immigrants. Some of them lived their entire lives in the U.S. without papers. My mom, however, became a U.S. citizen when she married my father - back in the day when citizenship¹⁵ through marriage was effectively automatic.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

3 masonry   

n.砖土建筑；砖石

参考例句：

• Masonry is a careful skill.砖石工艺是一种精心的技艺。
• The masonry of the old building began to crumble.旧楼房的砖石结构开始崩落。

4 sanctuary   

n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区

参考例句：

• There was a sanctuary of political refugees behind the hospital.医院后面有一个政治难民的避难所。
• Most countries refuse to give sanctuary to people who hijack aeroplanes.大多数国家拒绝对劫机者提供庇护。

5 authorized   

a.委任的，许可的

参考例句：

• An administrative order is valid if authorized by a statute.如果一个行政命令得到一个法规的认可那么这个命令就是有效的。

6 deported   

v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止

参考例句：

• They stripped me of my citizenship and deported me. 他们剥夺我的公民资格，将我驱逐出境。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The convicts were deported to a deserted island. 罪犯们被流放到一个荒岛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

8 syndrome   

n.综合病症；并存特性

参考例句：

• The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
• Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。

9 isle   

n.小岛，岛

参考例句：

• He is from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.他来自爱尔兰海的马恩岛。
• The boat left for the paradise isle of Bali.小船驶向天堂一般的巴厘岛。

10 stereotyped   

adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的

参考例句：

• There is a sameness about all these tales. They're so stereotyped -- all about talented scholars and lovely ladies. 这些书就是一套子，左不过是些才子佳人，最没趣儿。
• He is the stereotyped monster of the horror films and the adventure books, and an obvious (though not perhaps strictly scientific) link with our ancestral past. 它们是恐怖电影和惊险小说中的老一套的怪物，并且与我们的祖先有着明显的（虽然可能没有科学的）联系。

11 clannish   

adj.排他的，门户之见的

参考例句：

• They were a clannish lot,not given to welcoming strangers.他们那帮人抱成一团，不怎么欢迎生人。
• Firms are also doggedly clannish on the inside.公司内部同时也具有极其顽固的排他性。

12 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

13 weavers   

织工，编织者( weaver的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Navajo are noted as stockbreeders and skilled weavers, potters, and silversmiths. 纳瓦霍人以豢养家禽，技术熟练的纺织者，制陶者和银匠而著名。
• They made out they were weavers. 他们假装是织布工人。

14 immigrated   

v.移入( immigrate的过去式和过去分词 )；移民

参考例句：

• He immigrated from Ulster in 1848. 他1848年从阿尔斯特移民到这里。 来自辞典例句
• Many Pakistanis have immigrated to Britain. 许多巴基斯坦人移居到了英国。 来自辞典例句

15 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。