We have fond memories of Chicago and San Diego where we spend happy summers J-1-ing, and we'd be quite sad if future generations of students couldn't get to enjoy the experience. So, that makes Donald Trump our new public enemy No. 1 for wanting to ban J1 visas if he becomes president of the US.
Trump, who is currently leading the polls for the Republican nomination, lists a number of his policies on his website, DonaldJTrump.com, one of one is a requirement for businesses to hire Americans first, instead of job seekers of other nationalities.
This even trickles down to the J1 student visa, as Trump would see the programme cut in favour of having the jobs taken up by the "inner-city youth".
According to the website “the J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program”.
Advertised
That's bad news for Irish students, but seeing as over 150,000 Irish students have used the visa in the past 50 years, we can kind of see why he thinks it'll be a good idea.
More jobs for Americans is never going to be a bad policy if you want to get elected, but seeing as he's already taken flack for his comments about Mexicans, and women, does he really want to irk the Irish? Seeing as he's leading the polls, maybe there's something we're missing.
The Irish Examiner
