Ireland appoved for E 3 Visa - USA
 

Good to see progress with the U.S congress attempting to add Ireland to the E 3 visa category which has the potential to allow Irish pilots (who are interested) with the chance of working for a US operator who avails of the E-3 visa program such as www.flycommutair.com/e-3-visa.
Previously, the E -3 was generally only for Australian nationals.

The extract states the following:

"This bill expands the E-3 visa program to cover Irish nationals. The E-3 visa is a nonimmigrant visa currently only available to Australian nationals coming to the United States for employment in a specialty occupation. For Irish E-3 initial applications, the Department of State may approve each fiscal year no more than 10,500 minus the number of Australian initial applications approved the previous fiscal year"

Link - http://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-c...ouse-bill/2877

This visa was part of Australia-USA free trade agreement. So Ireland just gets to jump on board because they want to?

Surely the vocal support of the EU would mean that Irish people have no interest in working in the USA?

Also, the Commutair website clearly states they aren't taking E3 applications at this time.

I think they're being let on board because the US airlines are desperately short staffed. Not because the Irish 'want to'. And there's a strong link between the USA and Ireland. Just ask any yank in a bar anywhere in the USA - "I'm Irish". Sure you are.

I'm not familiar with Irish aviation so I wonder how many 1500 hour pilots who'd want to come here for a regional spot could Ireland provide ? If it's even possible to document or estimate.

I remain a shortage skeptic.

Any chance they could add Italy to the list? Plenty of Americans that say they're Italian, The Sopranos, Al Capone, Little Italy, bunga bunga, yadda yadda...

Pilots make up a tiny portion of E3 Australians working in the USA. Teachers, stockbrokers and IT people are the main users of the E3.

The Irish are just hurt that they don't have a special visa so their solution is make Australia share their allocation. Even though Ireland put no work into getting the agreement signed in the beginning.

The only one who seems at all hurt here is you.

The program is being extended because there aren't enough Australian applicants to fill the quota. If you had taken the time to read the 3 sentences in the OP link before becoming so outraged, you will have seen that Irish E-3 visas will only be granted to fill space left by unused Australians;

"For Irish E-3 initial applications, the Department of State may approve each fiscal year no more than 10,500 minus the number of Australian initial applications approved the previous fiscal year."

Why should the Irish get the balance of the visas? Why not New Zealand and South Africa? This is where your argument falls down. Whether we use our 10k quota a year is none of your business. The Australian govt didn't negotiate the deal to have everyone else jump on when it suits them.

My argument doesn't fall down anywhere because I didn't even make one, I simply stated a fact which undermined your initial point that Australia was having to share their E3 visa allocation with Ireland under the new scheme which they aren't. Your argument fell over because you were wrong.

I agree that it's none of my business whether or not Australia uses their 10,500 quota of visas. Similarly, it's absolutely none of your business how any one of the 10,499 applications other than your own potential one are allocated. It is, however, entirely America's business and no doubt in their best interests to make the changes they have - obviously the US Govt. DID negotiate the deal to have anyone else jump on it whenever it suited them.

Since its inception, the maximum number of E3 visas granted to Australians in any one fiscal year was 5,807 - just over one third of the quota. Clearly no detriment to Australia whatsoever is caused by the policy update so it's difficult to see why you are so outraged. Perhaps the US is looking for the best way to fill its skills shortage and Ireland presents the best option for them? But that's none of my business.

The USA hasn't been the instigator or wanting the Irish to pick up the unused visas. It's been Irish lobbyists in Washington.

Interesting. Does anyone know how much longer this bill may take to get passed?

Hopefully a very long time.

Perhaps if you stopped ranting for a moment and read the actual bill you would see that any visa's issued would be leftover from the Australia quota and only used in the following year by Ireland. Australia would still get first priority to all 10,500 if it wanted them.

A sensible way to allocate spare unused slots imo.

Anyway, on doing some further research, it was issued in the 116th session of Congress so it may well have stalled at the Senate stage unfortunately given we are now in the 117th session. I think bills only get 2 years before they die in the system.

I wouldn't expect much action on this issue by the kakistocracy unless they can see some political gain in it for themselves.

Wodka,

You seem not to understand how this visa category came into existence. It was negotiated by the Australian government as part of a free trade agreement 2005. It took many years of hard negotiating to reach that agreement and one of the great things about it is the E3 visa.

Why do countries think just cause a visa allocation is going unused that they deserve to get it without having to do any of the work that was involved in getting that allocation in the first place?

Luckily… nobody else seems to care!

I’m not even sure why you do 😂