  The tunneling ionization of a hydrogen atom excited in the presence of a
static electric field is investigated for the case where, before being
extracted, the electron has an orbital angular momentum L perpendicular to the
field E. The escaping electron has a nonzero mean transverse velocity <vT> in
the direction of E cross <L>. This asymmetry is similar to the Collins effect
in the fragmentation into hadrons of a transversely polarized quark. In
addition, the linear Stark effect make <L> and <vT> oscillate in time. The
degree of asymmetry is calculated at leading order in E for an initial state of
maximum transverse <L>. The conditions for the observation of this asymmetry
are discussed.
