10/12/2006 OCEAN CITY – A popular haven for international students over the summer months, a rouge group with illegal visas took the resort and local businesses, by storm last summer as a newly appointed town committee was faced with growing concerns.
When Ocean City Quality of Life Task Force Chairwoman Virginia Biafore presented resort officials last week with a summary of the group’s work over the summer of 2006, she spoke of a growing problem facing the resort.
According to Biafore, the committee assisted thousands of international students with finding housing, work and information to make their stay in Ocean City a positive one. Typically, foreign students obtain a J1 visa, which allows them to work, study and travel in the United States over a restricted time period. However, many of the international students in the resort legally on a J1 visa left early because they could not find second jobs or they were promised work once they arrived and quickly found out the offer was bogus, Biafore said.
“A lot of students left early because they couldn’t find second jobs,†she said.
The search for a second job was made increasingly difficult last summer because of a new problem unfamiliar to the resort. Biafore said she heard continued reports that herds of foreign natives with an F1 visa crowded Ocean City. She said that had never been an issue in the past. She said, aside from being here illegally, most of these international students gobbled up jobs.
Unlike a J1 visa, in order for foreign students to obtain an F1, they must be enrolled in an academic educational program, language-training course or vocational studies. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services must also approve the program and institution of choice.
The student must be enrolled full-time, be proficient in English, or learning the language, have sufficient funds available to support themselves through the entire study period and maintain residency in their home country.
The issue, however, arising from students in Ocean City with F1 visas was that they are only allowed to work on a U.S. campus, which was obviously not taking place. Biafore said groups of 10 and 20 people, mostly from Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, were identified. It is illegal for business owners to hire these students, she says, and many that did were left high and dry this summer when the groups took up and left the resort after a month. Biafore said the F1 students were hard-working people, but they were breaking the law and taking jobs from the law-biding foreign workforce. Many of the foreign students were studying in Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska and other mid-west colleges, far from Ocean City, she said.
“The Nepalese people work hard, but they weren’t allowed to be here. Obviously, if they’re in Ocean City and they go to school in Texas or Arkansas, they’re a little far away,†said Biafore.
International Student Services Owner Nick Campagnoli, a City Council candidate, this week said it has become a growing concern, especially because F1 students are not easily accounted for.
“About 99.9 percent of the students on a F-1 visa in Ocean City are working illegally,†said Campagnoli. “We had a huge increase this year, I think, it’s hard to keep track of it. As soon as they find something else, they’re gone. If you ignore a problem like that, it won’t go away, it just gets worse.â€
On the enforcement side, Ocean City Police Department (OCPD) spokesman Barry Neeb said officers noticed an increase in the amount of international students from Nepal, India and others this summer, but crime attributed to the rising nationalities was minimal.
“It’s not a concern, but we’ve seen a lot of people from different countries we haven’t seen before,†said Neeb.
However, three crimes ranging from the serious to the strange this summer involved Nepalese natives, one operated a taxicab and allegedly lured a visibly intoxicated young woman into a hotel where she was reportedly raped. Another was charged with exposing himself, punching a man and saying he would kill all Americans and white men. The third incident involved a Nepalese man who continued to yell at police that he was Osama bid Laden.
