Mark Reilly

I received my Morrison Visa in 1993. At the time, I was living in Dublin and studying at UCD. I did not move permanently to the United States straight away. I spent a few summers there, first in Seattle, where my brothers were living, and later in New York. I came to New York in 1994 and fell in love with the city. After completing my master’s degree at Trinity College in 1996, I moved to New York permanently just two weeks later.

I thought I was only going for a while. This November, it will be 30 years.

America was already becoming an important part of my family’s story. My father strongly encouraged us to apply for the Morrison Visa, and I was the third of three brothers in our family to receive one. My two brothers had received their visas in 1992. One had completed a master’s degree at Brown University and was working with Microsoft in Seattle, while my other brother had already come to the United States without a long-term visa. My father and sister were also selected, although neither ultimately took up the opportunity.

For a time, the three brothers were all building lives in America, one in Seattle, one in San Francisco, and me in New York. It was difficult for my mother to see all three of her sons leave Ireland. Both of my brothers eventually returned home. My eldest brother went back to help our parents, while my other brother also returned to Ireland and sadly passed away a few years ago.

By the time I completed my master’s degree in 1996, Ireland was changing. The Celtic Tiger was beginning to take off, and I probably could have found work at home. But by then, New York had captured me. I had friends there, I loved the energy of the city, and it felt like an exciting place to begin my career.

Finding My Way

My early experiences with American immigration were not always straightforward. Before receiving the Morrison Visa, I had tried to visit my brothers in the United States in 1992. I had not applied for a J1 Visa and instead applied for a holiday visa, which was refused. When I later received the Morrison Visa, the process included an AIDS test and traveling with a large chest X-ray.

I flew to Seattle through Cincinnati because it was the cheapest route. Immigration officials processed me there, including taking my fingerprints, and I continued on to Seattle for the summer.

After returning to UCD, however, I received a letter telling me there was a problem with my application and that I needed to travel back to Seattle to resolve it. There was very little explanation, which made the situation extremely nerve-racking. My father helped pay for another flight, and I traveled from Dublin to Seattle for the weekend.

When I arrived at the immigration office on Monday morning, I discovered the problem was simply that my fingerprints had been smudged. They took them again, and I flew straight back to Ireland.

Looking back, it seems extraordinary to travel all the way from Dublin to Seattle just to have fingerprints retaken, but at the time, you did not question the Immigration and Naturalization Service. You simply did what you were told.

There were other nervous moments too. I remember traveling through Boston and being held for a second immigration interview. I missed my connecting flight to Seattle while sitting in a room waiting to find out what was happening. Eventually, another immigration officer reviewed everything and simply said, “Okay, fine.”

Those moments stayed with me. Even when you knew you were entitled to enter, sitting in an immigration room without knowing what was going to happen was nerve-racking.

Building a Career From Scratch

When I moved permanently to New York, one of the biggest challenges was finding my first proper job. I had very little professional experience, and my academic background was in history. I was not coming into America with an obvious path into technology or design.

But I had always loved art, and some friends gave me design software to experiment with. I started playing around with it at exactly the right moment. The digital era was beginning. The internet was emerging, CD-ROMs were a major new medium, and businesses were starting to understand that they needed people who could design digital experiences.

I began to realize that there might be a career for me in this new world.

Eventually, I interviewed with a company located well outside New York City. It meant a reverse commute of about an hour, but I needed someone to give me that first opportunity. The person interviewing me liked the fact that I was Irish, and I genuinely believe that connection helped me get the job.

That first opportunity became the beginning of my career in digital design.

From there, I continued to learn. One of the great advantages of living in New York was access to schools, continuing education and professional development. I worked with agencies and spent time at both NYU and Columbia University working in web design and development before eventually moving into financial services.

Today, I work as a user experience designer at JPMorgan Chase, designing internal tools for the firm’s wealth-management business. I have been fortunate to build a career that has taken me from the earliest days of the internet through to another enormous technological shift, artificial intelligence.

Almost my entire working life has taken place in the United States. The Morrison Visa provided the legal foundation that allowed me to take that first opportunity and continue building on it.

Building a Life in America

The Morrison Visa changed far more than my career. I met my American wife here, and we raised our two children here. They are dual Irish and American citizens, giving them a connection to, and opportunities in, both countries. Of everything I have achieved since coming to America, my family is what I am most proud of.

I became an American citizen in 2002, shortly after September 11. My green card was approaching its ten-year point, and there was uncertainty about how the citizenship process might change, so I decided it was the right time.

Today, we live in Maplewood, New Jersey, outside New York City. I still work in New York, so the city I fell in love with all those years ago remains a major part of my life.

I have considered returning to Ireland over the years, but there has never really been a comparable professional opportunity for me there. My career is here. My wife and children are here. The life we have created is rooted here.

When I arrived, I could never have known that a visa I received as a young student would ultimately shape almost every aspect of my adult life.

What the Morrison Visa Means to Me

Particularly today, I see the Morrison Visa as a bright spot in the story of immigration. I am proud to be an immigrant in the United States. My own experience has given me enormous respect for other immigrants, both legal and undocumented, because I understand something of what it means to leave your home and start again from scratch. I wish there were more empathy for that experience.

The Morrison Visa showed what can happen when people are given a clear, legal path to live and work in a new country. It gave people like me the freedom to establish careers, build families, contribute to our communities and become part of American society.

It also changed my extended family. For a period, three brothers from the same Irish family were building lives in three different American cities. My own children now have strong connections to both Ireland and America. Those connections continue into another generation.

The reason I wanted to share my story is ultimately very simple. I wanted to say thank you to Bruce Morrison.

What he achieved had a profound and lasting impact on my life, my family and thousands of other Irish immigrants. I came to New York thinking I might stay for a while. Nearly 30 years later, America is where I built my career, became a citizen, met my wife and raised my family.