Student Visas: The US Authorities Fight Back

Brendan Doyle can’t wait to touch down at Boston’s Logan Airport. Over the past few months, the first year Business and Legal studies student has constantly thought about visiting Harvard, catching a Red Sox game and mixing with the huge Irish-American population based in the city.

This summer he is about to realise that ambition by doing what many Irish students have done in the past – going to the United States on a student J1 visa.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do all my life,” he says with notable excitement in his voice. “I’m sure it will be great experience to work there for a summer and just to live in the place for a while, to get a taste of the city.”
However over the past twelve months there’s been a considerable amount of doom and gloom surrounding the J1. With a huge drop in the numbers taking up the visa in 2004, there is real concern here that the programme is in terminal decline.
It was against that backdrop that the American Ambassador, Mr James C Kenny, went on the campaign trail last week, addressing two university seminars on the J1. The move had all the hallmarks of a last ditch effort to halt declining numbers.
Consider this: last year the visa, which entitles students to work in the US for four months during the summer, was taken up through USIT, the student travel agency, by a mere 2,800 students. This was a fall of nearly 4,000 on figures of 6,500 the previous summer.

MANDATORY INTERVIEW
Many have blamed the introduction of new procedures, such as the requirement for a mandatory interview at the US embassy, as key factors in putting Irish students off.
“There’s much more to it than that though,” says Seona MacRèamoinn of USIT. “Post September 11th, the numbers fell everywhere. Last year, though, was just a total shock. Suddenly there was this huge nose-dive. It’s not as if there has been a steady fall or anything like that.”
MacRèamoinn says that the intervention of Ambassador Kenny is a necessary step in addressing the problem. “Up until last year we really didn’t have to do much work in promoting it,” she says. “I mean it’s an institution. Often parents of today’s students have themselves gone on the J1. Everyone was aware of it. However, with such a drop last year, you have less students talking about it on campus. So it’s necessary to raise awareness again, and I think that is why Ambassador Kenny has intervened.”
MacReamoinn puts the collapse in the numbers last year down to a series of factors. During 2003, there had been a lot of media coverage of the difficulty in processing US social security numbers and this, as well as the strong anti-war sentiment on Irish campuses, turned people off.
“It was a combination of all those factors,” says MacRèamoinn, “along with things like our own growing economy. When you added them all, you got this weird mixture that spelt hassle. You’ll never get that combination again. The procedures aren’t new any more and I think, now, people will accept them as part of the application.”

FINGERPRINTING
Specifically, in 2004 final year students were ruled outside the scope of the J1, based presumably on the assumption that new graduates were more likely to hang on in the US, as illegals.
The new procedures themselves required of applicants: an interview at the US embassy; fingerprinting of those given visas; and an undertaking to register with the US authorities upon arrival, so that any individual student can be tracked.
Most significantly, perhaps, there was also a rule requiring all those applying to have a job in the US prior to receiving a visa.
Padraic Halpin, an arts student at UCD, was one of those who applied under the new rules. “Basically it got a bit tougher,” he says. “I’m now in my final year and, under the new rules, last year was my last chance to go. The interview was fairly straight-forward, It was very brief. I was expecting some crazy military interrogation. To be honest it was a complete waste of time really, especially the finger printing, because that’s done at the airport anyway.”
The issue of getting employment before travelling proved to be the most troublesome part. Halpin says that many of his friends were put off by this.
“By April there were a lot of people making different plans because they couldn’t get work,” he says. “I had good contacts but I’d ring up and they’d say they would sort something out for me once I got over. Not many people will give a job to a stranger over the phone, months before they actually arrive to begin work!”
However, that ruling has now been scrapped.
Students such as Brendan Doyle accept the new procedures – though they are not happy about it. “The finger printing and the tracking while you’re over there makes you feel like a criminal,” he says. “And I’m not happy about the added expenses of €100 for the interview. But the reasons to go far out-weigh the negatives.”
Traditionally, the J1 was a highlight in the lives of many students. USIT expect a return to this tradition in 2005. “It’s early yet,” says Seona MacRèamoinn, “but I expect the figures to rise. Everyone knows how great an experience it is and how valuable it can be. Those who go constantly come back with positive stories. It’s something that has been happening in this country for over forty years and not something that will just finish. The death of the J1 has been greatly exaggerated.”