US visa: Government signs deal to benefit 20,000 Irish

US:THE GOVERNMENT has signed a bilateral immigration deal with Washington that will allow 20,000 school leavers to work in the US for up to 12 months and 5,000 Americans to spend a year living and working in Ireland.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, who signed the deal with US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte in Washington yesterday, described it as one of the most significant developments for almost 20 years in Ireland's visa arrangements with the US.

"In many ways, it's one of the first formal, bilateral frameworks we've created between the United States and Ireland in terms of facilitating Americans to come to Ireland and Irish to go to America to work for a reasonable time frame and to do so in a legal way," he told The Irish Times.

The new visa, called a J visa, will be available to those who have completed secondary education and have enrolled in an educational course that could lead to a degree or diploma and to those who have recently graduated (within one year).

The existing summer J1 visa for students will continue as a separate programme. Mr Martin said the new visa would be similar to the one-year working holiday agreement.

"Australia would now be the number one destination for young people and I think it's because we have those frameworks in place and people do come back after the year in Australia," he said.

The Government now plans to pursue an agreement with the US on a two-year renewable work visa known as an E3 visa, which would operate on a reciprocal basis.

Mr Martin acknowledged that neither the J visa nor the proposed E3 visa would help undocumented Irish immigrants currently in the US.

He said there was no immediately apparent bilateral route to resolving the problem of the undocumented and that comprehensive immigration reform in the US would have to wait until a new Congress is formed next January.

"We as a country are committed and determined to try and look after and facilitate and regularise the undocumented who are currently here," he said.

"At the moment, we don't see such a route although things can change politically here too so we'll see what happens when the new House is configured."