With little fanfare, Congress by unanimous vote created a new visa category last month as part of a bill entitled the "Irish Peace Process Cultural and Training Program Act of 1998. President Clinton signed the bill on October 30th. The bill is now downloadable from the Documents Collection at the Siskind, Susser, Haas & Devine web site (http://www.visalaw.com/docs). The bill was sponsored by Representative Jim Walsh (R-NY) in the House of Representatives and outgoing New York Republican Senator Alphonse D'Amato.

Under the bill, the Department of State and the INS are charged with establishing a program to allow young people from disadvantaged areas of certain counties in Ireland and Northern Ireland to enter the US "for the purpose of developing job skills and conflict resolution abilities in a diverse, cooperative, peaceful and prosperous environment, so that those young people can return to their homes better able to contribute toward economic regeneration and the Irish peace process. The program shall promote cross-community and cross-border initiatives to build grassroots support for long-term peaceful coexistence." According to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, "this program offers a great opportunity to show others how Americans from many different religions live and work peacefully together."

The counties were selected based on a history of sectarian violence and high structural unemployment. They are the six counties of Northern Ireland and the counties of Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal within the Republic of Ireland.

The new visa will be called the Q-2 because it will be listed in Section 101(a)(15)(Q)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. 4,000 visas are available for each of the three years the program is authorized. Congress will reduce the number of H-2B visas permitted annually on a one to one basis as Q-2 visas are issued. Only a small portion of the 60,000 H-2B visas allotted each year get used so this should not cause problems (it also sends a reminder that the H-2B program is basically unworkable and employers are not using it). Readers should not confuse the H-2B visa with the H-1B visa for professional workers.

To be eligible for the program, applicants must be thirty-five years of age or younger, reside in one of the eligible counties, have no intention of abandoning residence in their home country and be coming to the US to participate in a cultural and training program approved by the State Department and the INS. Spouses and minor children may accompany the principal applicant. Applicants will be permitted to come to the US for up to three years. Thus, the last new applicants will be admitted at the end of the third year of the program and the program sunsets at the end of six years.

Congress did not specify how the State Department and INS were to go about approving sponsoring programs and no deadlines were placed for setting regulations or guidelines. As more information is released, however, we will inform our readers.