Someone I know was sponsored for a J-1 visa and worked as an elementary school teacher from July 2002 to June 2005. As per the sponsor, the three years between 2002 and 2005 was the maximum he was allowed.
Not wanting to leave the US, this person started exploring avenues that would enable him to continue with his job. From what I have been given to understand, he has apparently got a lawyer who has said that he can find him another sponsor who will be able to sponsor a new J-1 visa for this person.
In another case, a person on study visa, got a job after graduating and worked for the 1 year allowed to students for training/internship. For some reasons, his application for H1 did not materialize. Undeterred, his employer found a lawyer who in turn found a company that put in his application for J1 under the category of “training” in Information Technology.
I found this rather strange and so I did a little looking around on the Department of State’s website. While the regulations for J1 mention that the exchange visitor is expected to return to his home country at the end of the term, nowhere does it categorically say that an individual cannot apply for a fresh J1 after the expiry of the first one.
So here are my questions:
The agencies that exist as Exchange Visitor sponsors, especially those that sponsor teachers, apparently make a pretty good amount of money from the school boards where they supply the teachers. How does the US Dept of State allow the concept of cultural exchange be used to run a business for profit?
It seems that there are agencies in the US that have registered themselves as exchange visitor sponsors, but are actually bringing in many more teachers to work in the US than sponsoring Americans for visits outside. Is there not some sort of monitoring of these agencies that makes sure that they are not exploiting the process?
If it is indeed possible to get a fresh J1 at the end of the first one, why does the government not allow a longer term J1 visa in the first place?
In the case that I mentioned, though not sure, it appears to me that the lawyer and the sponsoring firm are cheating the system. Who should be informed to prevent such fraud?
I thought that the J1 was for highly specialized people. Professional athletes and musicians and dancers - that sort of thing. I thought just about everything else pretty much had to be a H1 or H1B.
Nope, Js include everybody from high school and university studetns who want to go do short-term work study in the U.S. to professional researchers and/or doctors, doctoral students, and most everybody else you can think of.
P or O visas are for performers or artists; in the case of the O the old presumption was that the applicant had to be internationally renowned and travelling to the U.S. to perform. Lots of musicians and circus people get Ps; people like Martina Navratilova would need an O. The O has been expanded to include producers, etc so you don’t necessarily need to be Pavarotti to get it.
Re the abuse of the J visa category, yes, it happens a lot and we are trained to prevent it. It’s hard enough to get a visa in the first place, and it’s even harder to get a special. And it costs about 800 USD to even get the chance to apply for one, at least down here. I have seen people get three or four in a row, and I’ve also denied a fair amount. What a lot of companies are doing when they run out of H allottments is switch to Js or Os, which we don’t like because it’s legal but skirts the intent of the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
Technically, it’s cultural exchange and work-study travel, and we let travel agencies advise people on visas for money, as well. We also have arrangements with countries based on reciprocity that govern whether it’s legal, so somebody like me who chose to pony up the US 100 or so to get a short-term work permit for Ireland could go and have fun and earn cash while I was in college. There are better ways of getting money than advising applicants on how to get a visa, because when you come to my office if you don’t qualify, no visa for you. It is not a guarantee that because you’ve gone through an organization like USIT or International Student Exchange, who do run full-time exchange programs in addition to summer work-study, that you will qualify for a visa.
Every organization that does this gets checked once a year by both the Bureau of Consular Affairs and Diplomatic Security to make sure they are in compliance. Some do slip through, but thankfully not many.
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Reciprocity with the country that the applicant is a citizen of, compliance with the Geneva Accord and the Paris Treaty, and the fact that well, a lot can change in two to five years. Kids get born and/or grow up, marriages coalesce and/or disintegrate, people die, etc. Having long-term visas that have to be reevaluated (NOT renewed, we don’t ever do that) lets the adjudicating officer see the whole picture and whether that applicant has been a good little boy or girl – no overstays, fraud, selling their visa for fun and profit, no criminal convictions, etc. The other day one of my colleagues had to refuse a student who had overstayed by two months after his J expired, and according to the rules he had to cancel his tourist visa as well. The applicant had at that point demonstrated a willingness and history of illegal stay in the U.S, so not only did he not get a new one, he also lost the chance of getting one in the near future, even to go to Disney or see friends.
Consular Affairs and/or Homeland Security and maybe Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but without knowing more about the case, I can’t say further. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that, unfortunately, we already know immigration lawyers are usually somewhat results-focused (slimy) and know the regs really well. Right and legal aren’t always the same thing, unfortunately.