A Visa Overstayer's Journey Illustrates Migration Saga

By Sally Filler
June 4, 2007 9:25 AM

The story of Irish immigration during America's adolescence is well documented. What isn't commonly known is the story of the modern undocumented Irish immigrant, which parallels the story of roughly half of America's undocumented population -- that of the visa overstayer.

This is the immigrant who crosses no bridge, river or desert, but instead enters the country legally with a temporary visa and simply overstays the expiration date.

This is the immigrant who blends in more easily than the undocumented worker who crossed a border illegally. Many of these foreign nationals come from Europe and Canada. On the surface, they appear more "American."

One particular Irishman illustrates this saga. Ciaran O'Murchu (pronounced Kee-ron Oh Mer-que) left Ireland in 1990 at age 23, looking for work in London.

"The only employment opportunities in England were construction," he said. "Irish people in London in the '90s were treated [by employers] the equivalent to Hispanic workers coming from Mexico to Los Angeles. But the way they were treated by the authorities was more like Muslim people around 9/11."

O'Murchu lived in a four-bedroom house with 12 other Irish nationals. After a year of working menial jobs and living under constant suspicion, he signed on as a photographer aboard a Greek-based cruise ship in the Caribbean.

After he got the job, O'Murchu went to the U.S. Embassy for a C-1D visa. Known as the combined transit and crewman visa, the C-1D enables foreign nationals to leave and reenter the U.S. at will because of the nature of the cruise industry. A foreign national with the C-1D may stay on U.S. soil for up to 30 days.

During a three-month leave while the ship was dry-docked, O'Murchu traveled the U.S. by rail and wound up in Los Angeles in the summer of 1992. That's where his illegal odyssey began.

Out of money, O'Murchu took his first job as an undocumented worker until the cruise company had room for him on a ship. At Universal Studios theme park, he snapped tourist photos for an independent contractor. He and several other photographers in similar straits shared three employee IDs and uniforms to enter and leave the park with their boss, a U.S. citizen.

"We all had to be a certain height and a certain weight so we'd pass security, and so long as the one [American] guy was with us, nobody questioned us."

After a position opened on a ship traveling to the Mexican Riviera from Los Angeles, O'Murchu was again working legally under the bounds of his C-1D. When he was dismissed from his job in May 1992, his former employer told him to leave the U.S. Though his C-1D didn't expire for another year, it was no longer valid because he didn't have an employer.

He chose to stay.

O'Murchu learned that the key to everything financial in the U.S. hinged on a Social Security number. In 1992 a non-citizen could obtain a non-working SSN for the purpose of acquiring a driver's license but not for getting a job. That policy was eliminated in March 2002 in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Armed with his unexpired C-1D, O'Murchu went to a Social Security office and obtained a non-working SSN. A friend's parents let him use their address. To this day, that is still his Social Security number. He got a California driver's license shortly thereafter.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which has since been reorganized and is now called the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, had little motivation or means to track down visa overstayers prior to 9/11. Instead, its policy was to reject applicants who might be potential overstayers before they entered the country. The agency put its efforts into pursuing smugglers or criminals rather than overstayers.

The federal government's post-9/11 response to visa overstayers has been mixed. Back in 1996, Congress pushed INS to develop a comprehensive entry-exit tracking system, but then backed off because of economic and technical concerns. At least three of the 9/11 hijackers were visa overstayers.

Phoenix immigration attorney Erena Baybik says the ambitious plan was fraught with difficulties.

"In a population of at least 365 million, how could you possibly track one person?" Baybik said. "Some people have common names. Even with the FBI name checks, [some foreign nationals] suffer because a lot of them have the same names and one of them committed a crime."

She thinks the federal government is leaning toward implementing an interstate tracking system.

Perhaps half of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants are visa overstayers. Any statistics on this subject are guesswork, however, because it's too expensive to track every person.

O Murchu's story is rife with strategies to acquire fake green cards, birth certificates and any documents that would help him land work.

For example, a Spanish-speaking friend allowed O'Murchu to photocopy and alter his own New York State birth certificate. Armed with his Social Security card, a California driver's license and a falsified birth certificate, O'Murchu found a decent-paying job at a photo-processing shop.

By the summer of 1993, O'Murchu was working three photography jobs. When an unscrupulous acquaintance swindled O'Murchu out of a year's worth of rent. O'Murchu learned to protect himself.

"Every person I'd come across took full advantage and milked me."

But he couldn't protect himself against nature. In the early morning of January 17, 1994, the earth began to move. He watched as parts of his apartment building crumbled.

The Northridge Earthquake turned out to be the costliest earthquake in U.S. history. More than 22,000 people were left homeless. O'Murchu was among them.

FEMA gave O'Murchu $1,000 for immediate relief because his address was so close to the quake's epicenter. He later received an additional $3,000 after FEMA determined the value of his losses.

Today, receiving government benefits could be a reason to deny an immigrant a green card, says Baybik, the Phoenix immigration attorney. "If you do receive benefits, if you're on welfare for a while, it could bar you from getting a green card if you ever qualify," she warns clients. "Because you're in danger of becoming a public charge, that's a basis for inadmissibility."

In July 1997 O'Murchu married his American girlfriend, Jenna Byrne. He hired an attorney to handle his immigration case. After the legal wrangling, O'Murchu paid the government an $80 fine and received his permanent resident status, which entitles him to work here legally.

Today, it wouldn't be that easy. As of April 30, 2001, illegal immigrants are now subject to provisions from the 1996 immigration reform passed by Congress. Essentially, it bars those who have been in the country illegally for 6 to 12 months from reentering for three years. Those in the country illegally for longer than a year are barred from reentering for 10 years.

Today O'Murchu owns a home in Fountain Hills, Ariz. He works for a major resort and is raising his U.S.-born daughter.

"My dream and my desire for her is for her to be able to explore and not be suppressed by in any regard, as I was."

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism