Cecilia Keaveney
Question:132 Cecilia Keaveney asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the position in relation to the United States of America Border visas programme recently announced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23838/98]
Written Answers - US Visa Programme.
The Irish Peace Process Cultural and Training Bill passed the United States House of Representatives and Senate by unanimous consent in early October and was signed into law by President Clinton on 30 October 1998. The Bill amends the US immigration law to insert a new visa programme, which is expected to be called the Q-2 or "Irish Peace Process Cultural and Training" visa programme. The Q-2 programme will allow 4,000 people per annum aged 35 or under and having residence in Northern Ireland or one of the six Border counties to come to the US for a period of not more than three years for the purpose of developing job skills and conflict resolution abilities. The Bill as passed into law is substantially the same as proposed by the Irish Immigration Reform Movement (IIRM) with a downward adjustment in the number of visas available and the length of stay allowed. The only substantial amendment from what was originally proposed was the dropping of the waiver that would have allowed Irish undocumented in the US to benefit from the new programme.
Now the legislation has been signed, the embassy in Washington understands that an inter-agency consultation process is getting under way. The legislation provides for the programme to be approved by both the Attorney General, that is the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, and the Secretary of State, that is, the Department of State, and as such it can be assumed a potentially complex consultation process will have to be completed before the programme will be in place and ready to start accepting applications. It is widely expected that this process will take some months to complete. The embassy in Washington will continue to closely monitor the progress of the process.
I greatly appreciate the efforts of Congressman Jim Walsh who in July announced a bipartisan congressional effort with Senator Alfonse D'Amato to introduce the legislation and others in the Congress who promoted this Bill. It is a further valuable contribution by the United States which underpins the peace process.