CLONMEL -- Rarely a day passes during the holiday season without hearing how vigilant immigration officers have captured Irish citizens in the States who have overstayed their visas. The procedure is simple--they're identified, handcuffed, starved for 12 hours, denied access to phone calls, and locked down for months pending a hearing. This well-oiled tactic, certain to safeguard America from terrorist and eco-tourists, explains why the westbound Aer Lingus flights are exceptionally busy this year. Now Irish grannies go west to visit their offspring who have overstayed. You can hear who they are in Manhattan, Chicago, and Boston. They might be your taxi driver, day labourer, nanny, or mechanic. Like Irish who have landed before, they work hard, do the weekend labour, show up on time on Mondays and rarely complain. I know this story first-hand because it was told to me by my late grandmother who recalls the sweat and toil of the McKelvey and McAuliffe famliles as they made a life in the New World in the late 1800s. Things are different today. Those kind of long-staying entrepreneurs need not apply for entry to the USA. I don't think the Founding Fathers would have agreed to that philosophy. I know the Statute of Liberty would bear a different inscription if it had been erected within the last two years. Times have changed. Attitudes have warped. The undercurrent that oozes below the check-in counters and immigration way stations isn't part of the society I used to defend in uniformed service of the United States. And the way history is being rewritten in the Post 9/11 era, I wonder if anyone will believe America used to welcome the huddled masses?