While many Jews emigrated to Israel, others chose the United States instead. Known as "dropouts", the emigres applied for US refugee visas while waiting at transit centers in Austria and Italy. In March 1976, the "dropout rate" rose to over 50%. Most of the Soviet Jews who only wanted to emigrate to Israel out of religious and/or ideological reasons had done so by 1973. However, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment passed by US Congress in 1974, along with additional US congressional funding for Soviet Jewish resettlement, and "reports of work and housing difficulties" in Israel due to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, created a situation for this "dropout" rate to rise, forcing 51,000 Soviet Jews from 1975 - 1980 to migrate to the US and join the 1.5 million Jews who fled the Russian empire prior to World War I.