Donald Trump in the White House could spell the end of the J-1

Businessman Donald Trump has his eyes on the White House and, if he gets there, it seems the J-1 is one of his targets for the axe.

Trump is the current frontrunner among candidates for the Republican nomination despite a string of gaffes and criticism of comments aimed at women and migrants.

His campaign website, donaldtrump.com, lists a range of policies he would seek to implement were he to be voted into the Oval Office, including a requirement firms hire Americans first, ahead of job candidates of other nationalities, and the mandatory return of all foreign nationals with a criminal conviction.

The list of proposals also targets the J-1 visa, a rite of passage for tens of thousands of Irish teenagers in recent decades. According to the Trump site, it would be scrapped and instead replaced by a jobs programme aimed at “inner-city youth”.

According to the proposal, “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”.

More than 150,000 Irish students have used the J-1 option to visit the US in the past 50 years.

The Berkeley balcony tragedy in June, in which five Irish students and an Irish-American teenager were killed and others seriously injured, thrust the J-1 programme into the spotlight when a severely criticised article in the New York Times said it had become “not just a source of aspiration, but also a source of embarrassment for Ireland”.

It prompted a furious response, including a strongly-worded letter from former president Mary McAleese, in which she said: “I was a J-1 visa student in California over 40 years ago.

“Tens of thousands of Irish J-1 students have spent happy summers there over the years since. By far the vast majority have been a credit to Ireland and only the very tiniest minority have not.”

Under the J-1 scheme, third-level full-time students completing degree level courses can work in the US for four months between May 15 and September 15, with the option of securing an additional month. Applicants must be over 18 years of age and under 28.

Students can already apply for a J-1 for 2016, although one company which helps with the process, Sayit, issued a warning earlier this year regarding a J1 “summer accommodation scam taking place on various campuses” targeting those in the US this summer.