Irish Flood Mails With U.S. Visa Applications

Thousands of would-be emigrants trying to flee record unemployment stuffed mailboxes with 80,000 special U.S. visa applications over the weekend in an effort to take advantage of a new emigration provision.

Postal officials said many people were sending at least 20 applications each. Many post offices ran out of air mail stamps for the mailings.

“There’s just nothing here for us,” said a young couple sending in applications, referring to the country’s 19% unemployment and high taxes.

They hoped the applications would arrive in Washington with Wednesday’s first mail in a special 10,000 first-come, first-served visa “lottery” for people in 36 nations.

Applications arriving before Wednesday will be thrown out under the rules.

The visa fever stemmed from a decision by Congress, prompted by Rep. Brian Donnelly (D-Mass.), an Irish-American, to allow an extra 10,000 immigrants during the next two years.

Charles Gordon, a former general counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, called it a “mad thing” and said that it would trigger a rush by hundreds of thousands of people to post offices around the world.

Although the chances are small of an individual being granted a visa under the program, it was a sensation in Ireland, and the U.S. Embassy reported receiving as many as 1,500 queries a day. Irish postal officials said that 80,000 applications were sent by Monday.