After 15 years in New York, Anne* still gets excited about the city she has made home. Living on the "Green Mile" of Woodlawn, the Bronx district that the Irish colonised almost 20 years ago, she is surrounded by friends. Her partner owns his own business, Anne has never been out of work and after almost 10 years of study, she qualified last year as a nurse through the New York's City University.

"I love it here. I have a great life," she says.

Anne may still love New York but as an undocumented immigrant, life has got a lot tougher lately.

Her partner has a business but he doesn't have a driver's licence - and neither will Anne once hers expires. Without the social security number that every legal US resident is given, Anne can't renew her licence, take out medical insurance, get a telephone line, cash a cheque or - despite her qualifications - work as a nurse.

Undocumented immigrants can take only cash-in-hand jobs - construction and bar work for men and waitressing, child care, elderly care, cleaning and bartending for women. Anne has worked as a bartender and is now a nursing aid, taking care of an elderly woman.

"I'd love to stay here but I'm at my wits' end. I'll be 38 on Thursday and I just feel, what's here?" she says.

Thousands of undocumented Irish immigrants in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and throughout the US are asking themselves the same question. President George W Bush and the US Congress are considering measures that could offer millions of illegal immigrants a chance to work legitimately, perhaps with the prospect of becoming citizens in the future.

Siobhan Dennehy, director of New York's Emerald Isle Immigration Centre, says that change can't come soon enough for immigrants who are afraid to go home for a holiday in case they will be refused entry on their way back.

"It's hard for the people who are here in that type of situation because it's just one more Christmas that they're going to miss. It's just one more party or christening or family member. One more missed holiday. What's it going to take to put people over the edge?" she says.

The last time Anne went home to Co Kerry was for her brother's funeral in February 2002 and she fears that the next time she leaves the US she will not be allowed to return. Tighter controls at airports, including the fingerprinting and photographing of all visitors to the US, have made going home a risky business. Anyone found to have overstayed their visa in the US by more than six months faces a 10-year ban on returning to the country.

"God forbid something happens. I'm waiting for that phone call any minute, telling me that my father is ill and I have to go home. Travelling home for birthdays, christenings, funerals, weddings - we can't do it. We really can't do it because, if you want to stay here at this present time, you daren't leave the country. And it's like you're a prisoner here," says Anne.

A psychology graduate from Dublin, Rose* was 22 when she came to New York in 1998, planning to stay for a few months. After three years working behind a bar, she moved back to Dublin to take up a teaching job but felt unhappy in Ireland and returned to New York in September 2001.

"It was just crazy because the Twin Towers fell and everybody's world changed, especially being an immigrant here. America became to me a country that had an atmosphere of: we don't want any more of you coming in here and bombing us," she says.

After the terrorist attacks, immigrants found that without a social security number to prove their identity, doors that had once been open slammed shut. Each month appears to bring new restrictions and some are now afraid to take internal flights within the US because of stricter passport checks.

The most important change for many is the loss of any chance of getting a driver's licence, a potentially fatal blow to businesses run by immigrants. Some drive without a licence, taking a risk that would once have been unthinkable but now seems a necessity.

LIKE ALL ILLEGAL immigrants, the undocumented Irish swim in a sea of illegality, telling lies every day so they can do the most ordinary things.

"I know people who moved into a new apartment and wanted to get their telephone switched on or wanted to get a cable bill or wanted to get a cell phone and they started using fake social security numbers. You could actually be engaging in identity theft there but you find yourself doing these things," says Rose.

Immigrants can use false names to rent apartments and pay electricity and phone bills but no subterfuge can help them if they fall ill. Emergency medical care is available free to those in need regardless of immigration status but immigrants have to pay for all other visits to the doctor or dentist themselves.

"I don't have medical insurance because you need a social security number. I had to do tests there recently and I told the hospital I'm willing to pay this but I'll have to do it month by month. I'm talking about $3,000 for one test, besides doctor's fees. I'm paying $100 a month," says Anne.

For Rose, who works behind a bar, the hardest part of being illegal is being unable to work at a job for which she is qualified. She recently completed a Master's degree but she can't put it to use as long as she remains undocumented.

"I was 30 in July and I felt very ashamed of myself on one level. I've spoken to family members and friends and my husband about this but it doesn't matter what they say. What matters is what I feel. When I was in my teenage years I always imagined that I would be in a job that I felt challenged in and I felt I was making a difference to society," she says.

At the Aisling Irish Community Centre, two psychotherapists and a social worker try to help immigrants deal with the strain of living illegally. Patricia Grogan, the centre's director, said that many families are close to their breaking point.

"Marital issues are the key thing. It's an extreme strain on the families. One of them wants to stay here and another wants to leave. A lot of people here work so many hours - 12 hours a day, six days a week - that wives never see their husbands . . . They're living in an underground. They can't access any part of the public health system or the American agencies for help. Some people would say that these people don't want to be legitimate but we don't see that," she says.

As the undocumented life becomes more difficult, some Irish immigrants are taking desperate measures in the hope of getting a green card. New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer is investigating Christine Owad, who is reported to have swindled hundreds of Irish immigrants with promises of a green card in return for $3,000 (€2,470).

Others have simply had enough and are giving up their jobs or liquidating their businesses, packing up their belongings and moving home to Ireland. Danny Moloney, whose Liffey Van Lines has been moving the Irish to and from America for more than 30 years, said the return to Ireland has turned into a stampede.

"June and July were the busiest months we ever had. One day in Woodlawn I had 11 containers in one street," he says.

Irish enclaves such as Woodlawn are dying, with the district's 30 Irish bars almost empty most nights, diners and delis deserted and corner shops struggling to survive. Irish clubs and societies are suffering too - four GAA teams folded last year because they couldn't find enough players.

Nollaig Cleary, who runs the Ladies' GAA in New York, said women's teams had fared better than men's because they draw heavily on Irish-Americans rather than Irish immigrants.

"The ladies have held their own until now, but I think next year will be tough for us. A huge number of players have gone home," she says.

AS THE UNDOCUMENTED go home, fewer Irish immigrants are arriving in the US. Those who come from the Republic tend to be very young and often unskilled. Immigrants from the North are often more highly qualified but they face the same obstacles as they look for work in the US.

Rose advises anyone in Ireland thinking of settling in the US illegally to think again. If the law doesn't change within the next two years, she and her husband are leaving, but in the meantime, she remains trapped in New York.

"My grandmother died and I didn't go to her funeral. I haven't been home for Christmas in four years. If my mother got sick, I'd have to lose my whole life. I have pets - what would I do with them? What about my apartment? All my furniture? What about my job? Do I lose everything because my mother's sick?" she says.

Anne is hoping for immigration reform early next year but she has made up her mind that, if nothing changes within the next 12 months, she's going home. "I'm going home regardless this time next year. My sister is getting married. She's the first one of my sisters to get married. She wants the three sisters at the wedding and I'm going, I don't care. But I think at that stage we're going to be packed up and gone."

* Names have been changed

© The Irish Times