It has taken 90 years since she was born in a poor house in County Limerick for a woman considered America’s oldest illegal immigrant to get her Irish passport.It will be a few more months before Josephine Stout will finally be declared a US citizen, entitling(赋于…权力) her to a pension and other benefits.
Despite having lived in America for most of her life since she arrived in 1923, the great-grandmother was declared an undocumented alien(华侨)in 1999, when she tried to claim state aid to help raise her seven grandchildren, who were left orphaned when her daughter was killed by a robber over$20.
Even though she has never considered herself Irish, noting “I don’t even have an accent,” she didn’t officially exist as an American when officials in Chicago insisted that she prove her citizenship in order to qualify for benefits. But she had no birth certificate or passport when she arrived on an immigrant ship from Ireland from Ireland with her parents, who had 12 other children.
She never gave the matter much thought until 1999, when she was in her late 70s and needed assistance to raise her grandchildren. For 12 years, Mrs. Stout managed to support the family by doing various jobs. But her life was hard and marked by tragedy. Her husband died in 1996, and her son Thomas died in a car accident with his girlfriend in 1985. Her only surviving child, Rosemary, died of cancer in 2009.
A Catholic charity referred her case to Chicago Irish Immigrant Support(CIIS), which alerted the Irish Consulate(领事馆). Through them, they tracked down her birth certificate, the website irishcentral.com reported. The document, in turn, allowed her to receive her Irish passport, and eventually her American green card in September 2011, which was dated back to November 1, 1923.
小题1:What will happen to a person if he has no green card in the US?
A．he cannot get any chance to get education
B．he can’t have a pension and other benefits
C．his citizenship will be taken away
D．he has to take illegal part-time job小题2:Josephine couldn’t be a legal immigrant because ______.
A．she was named an undocumented alien
B．she arrived in American in a secret way
C．She couldn’t find her proper certificates
D．She has too many brothers and sisters小题3:We can imply from the 4th paragraph that ______.
A．Josephine lived a lonely life for many years
B．Thomas was always driving carelessly
C．Josephine was a strong-willed woman
D．Mrs. Stout, Josephine’s friend, helped her a lot.小题4:Please arrange the following events in the correct order according to the text.
a. Josephine’s birth certificate was found.
b. Josephine received her green card.
c. The Catholic charity contacted CIIS.
d. The birth certificate was shown on a website.
e. Josephine was offered her Irish passport.
A．a-b-c-d-e
B．c-d-e-a-b
C．a-d-c-b-e
D．c-a-d-e-b
