PANAMA CITY BEACH — Natalia Webber’s departure from Panama City Beach in late August was bittersweet.
The 26-year-old law student from Kingston, Jamaica, spent three months in the area on a J-1 Visa Summer Work Travel Program, a temporary work program designed for college and university students. It was her third time in the U.S. on a J-1 Visa — and by far the worst experience, she said.
From the minute she stepped off the plane in Fort Lauderdale with about 30 other Jamaican students, Webber described the experience as “all lies” from her program sponsor — what was described as a two-bedroom hotel was instead a crowded dorm, and the number of work hours she was promised were not met.
Upon arriving at The Ark in Panama City Beach, her home for the next three months, she couldn’t help but break down and cry.
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“I didn’t cry for me; I cried because everybody was so heartbroken, disappointed, down and out,” Webber said. “In Jamaica, America is like heaven. Everybody was like, ‘This is America?’ ”
During her stay, Webber worked three jobs — about 80 hours per week — to pay back the $2,000 program fee, the cost of airfare to come to the U.S., and also bring home money to put toward tuition at the University of the West Indies.
“It’s difficult for us to pay our school fees while we’re in Jamaica,” Webber said. “That’s pretty much the kind of work you have to do to make enough.”
Late in the summer, she juggled a housekeeping job at Origin Beach Resort in Panama City Beach with jobs at McDonald’s and Shoney’s. When Webber was not at work, she shared a crowded dormitory with dozens of other J-1 workers. A glimpse inside the facility’s common room one morning revealed filthy conditions, with students sleeping on a set of couches pushed together.
Pegged as a “cultural exchange” program by the U.S. Department of State, the J-1 Summer Work Travel Program funnels thousands of foreign college students into unskilled work positions across the country every year. To participate in the program, students pay “sponsors” to act as job placement agencies and also assist with housing, insurance and other needs through the duration of their stay.
But sponsors often fade into the shadows upon students’ arrival — and what is advertised often is not what participants find when they arrive in the U.S., The News Herald found through multiple discussions with J-1 workers in both Panama City Beach and Destin.
‘I feel trapped’
Webber said when she raised concerns about the issues involving her employer and unfit accommodations, the sponsor proved useless. Lack of affordable housing options in the area didn’t help.
“I feel trapped,” she said during her stay this summer. “Some of us wanted to go back, but we couldn’t. There is no refund.”
And Webber’s experience is not a unique one among J-1 students.
Katerina Vankova, a doctoral student studying cancer research in Prague, Czech Republic, came to the U.S. seeking a rich cultural experience, but she also left feeling defeated after experiencing unsavory treatment at one of her jobs.
“I think the idea of a work experience in the USA is beautiful, you think work and travel will be great,” Vankova said. “But you come here and they think you’re just a cheap, hard worker and they behave very awful. ... They behave like we are rats.
“The big problem is they always offer the horrible jobs to the J-1 students ... always the worst,” she continued. “It’s awful to work for very little money.
Vankova also resided at The Ark during her stay, and she, too, was presented with a different picture. Likewise, her employment contract promised a minimum of 30 hours per week, but she only worked about half that.
“I paid a lot of money to my sponsor to help me, but they are not helpful,” Vankova said. “They didn’t help me find housing; they didn’t help me with nothing.”
Yet, despite some misfires, Vankova said she does not regret the experience.
“I came here because I wanted to know a different culture, to meet new people, to have new experiences,” she said. “I really enjoy it here. It’s one of my best decisions in life, but I’m disappointed in the agency, in work, in the people at work. If I separate all of that, it’s great.”
Not a cultural exchange
Daniel Costa, the director of immigration law and policy research for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., described the State Department’s J-1 program as a deeply flawed system.
“The Summer Work Travel program is pretty much purely an unskilled worker program,” Costa said. “I think a lot of people are coming around to agreeing and realizing that.”
Unlike other temporary work visas, like the H-2B visa for nonagricultural guest workers, J-1 Visas are not regulated by the U.S. Department of Labor and lack direct oversight from the State Department.
Instead, responsibility is outsourced to the sponsors, who work directly with employers to place the students.
Additionally, the State Department only has authority to sanction the sponsors but not the employers, opening the door for employee mistreatment. Costa said it’s common for employers to threaten to have an employee’s visa canceled if they report poor working conditions to their sponsor.
“Because of that conflict of interest, it’s hard for workers to complain,” he said. “The kids who are here are terrified of having their visa canceled, so many of them have invested thousands of dollars to come here and be part of the program.”
In Florida alone there were 5,489 participants in the J-1 Summer Work Travel Program in 2012. The program is just one of 14 offered by the State Department under the visa, which supports the largest group of guest workers in the U.S. annually.
“The main unskilled guest worker program, the H2-B, the annual limit is 66,000,” he said. “Just the Summer Work Travel program is much larger than that.”
Unlike with the H-2B Visa, employers are not required to pay a prevailing wage and are exempt from paying other fees like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment taxes for J-1 employees.
“Employers sort of prefer it over the regular work programs,” said Costa, referencing the H-2B Visa. “In that program, you have to pay a prevailing wage that’s set by the labor departments.”
Seasonal solution
For many employers in the Panama City Beach and Destin areas, employing J-1 students is a good answer to the intense seasonality of the destinations as demand swells during the summer months.
Mike Bennett, owner of several Panama City Beach resorts and restaurants, including Origins at Seahaven and Seahaven Beach Resort, described J-1 students as a critical piece of the local economy.
“You get great service at a great price without the burdens of federal taxes,” Bennett said. “For a business that’s after the bottom line in a seasonal economy, they’re critical.”
During the summer, Bennett employed roughly 100 J-1 students.
“It’s like a race; you go from idle speed to 160 miles an hour,” Bennett said. “It’s the nature of the beast, and I think we’re pretty good at it.”
Bennett also sits on the board at The Ark, which recently began housing J-1 students at a charge of $10 per night.
“That was a goal for us, to be a safe place,” Bennett said of The Ark, which is owned by the United Methodist Church. “We’ve been what we intended to be — a safe place to call home.”
Bennett employed Webber and the other Jamaican students as housekeepers over the summer, and said the program’s sponsor, The WISE Foundation, failed to properly describe the property.
The Tennessee-based WISE Foundation, however, pushed the responsibility elsewhere.
WISE Foundation President Tim Pogue said housing ultimately was coordinated and described incorrectly by the employer. He also said the foundation’s overseas partner in Jamaica dropped the ball by failing to tour the facilities.
“We were upset,” said Pogue, who traveled to Panama City Beach late in the program to observe the conditions. “It just wasn’t something I would want our students to live in or I would want to live in. The only word I could come up with was sad. It was sad to see them living in that type of housing.”
Pogue said WISE heard about the problems shortly after the students arrived, but the alternative housing offered was too expensive or too far away.
Todd Buchla, vice president of WISE, said the situation is not a shining example of getting it right. He described the process to become a J-1 sponsor as fairly involved. Beyond job placement services, WISE also checks in with students once a month by email and provides a 24-hour emergency line, he said.
“It’s a cultural exchange program at the heart of it, but that doesn’t mean everything goes exactly as planned overseas,” Buchla said. “There are differences; there are changes. These are students, in many cases, experiencing their first time away from home. We want them to have the fundamentals to be properly prepared.”
Following Pogue’s visit, Webber said she was tired of the finger-pointing.
“I feel so victimized because all these people that were supposed to be helping us were playing the blame game,” Webber said. “I just don’t want this to continue to happen.”
Getting better
Despite its flaws, Scott Springer, resident agent in charge of homeland security investigations in Bay County, said the J-1 Summer Work Travel Program has improved over the last few years.
In 2012, the U.S. Department of State began requiring sponsors to have students’ jobs lined up prior to arrival. Before, sponsors often just gave students the phone number for an employment contractor, creating another window for exploitation.
“They have much more oversight than they did a couple of years ago,” Springer said. “It completely changed the way the program operates.”
With the middleman out of the picture, Springer said the change eliminated many of the problems seen in Panama City Beach, including instances of labor trafficking and employee mistreatment.
However, while many employers on the beach embrace J-1 students, Springer said there still are some bad seeds.
“There are many of them that take advantage of these kids because they know they’re going to be here for a short amount of time,” Springer said. “These guys know they can take advantage of these foreign national kids.”
Springer said law enforcement has since taken a proactive approach toward J-1 programs, providing presentations for students on local laws and how to be safe during their stay.
Help for J-1s also comes from various volunteer groups in the area. For J-1s in Destin, many have found a second home at the Destin United Methodist Church, which coordinates a free weekly dinner for visiting students during the summer.
The church launched its J-1 ministry three years ago after a young Bulgarian woman was killed on U.S. 98 while riding her bicycle home after a late night at work.
“They come over here with youth and vigor and the American idea, and they get bad experiences, they get ugly Americans and we don’t want them to have that,” Destin United Pastor Barry Carpenter said of the students. “What they need is love and acceptance — what any of our kids would need if they’re going to another country.”
Along with the J-1 dinner each week, the church offers free bike repairs and sends students home with a backpack of food to help them make it through the week.
‘We were lucky’
On a Wednesday in late August, dozens of J-1s gathered at the church to enjoy an All-American fried chicken dinner.
Among the crowd was 19-year-old Deandra Robinson from Jamaica, who split her time working for Wyndham Resorts and Surf Style in Destin. Even with two jobs, she said it’s often not enough to get by.
“It’s not enough because we’re struggling at the moment,” said Robinson, who spent her first month in Destin sharing a small motel room with four other girls. “It’s all work, no play.”
Moldovan student Inonov Victor said he spent about $4,000 to come to the U.S. to improve his English. To pay it off, he worked about 75 hours a week at Big Kahunas and Sunsations.
“I’m like a robot,” Victor said.
Church congregation member Cindy Wilson, who helped launch the J-1 ministry, said the church also acts as a liaison between the students and sponsors, which has helped improve students’ experiences abroad.
“The best news is, this year we’ve really started building a relationship with these sponsors,” Wilson said. “They know we’re going to call them out when they don’t treat the students properly. At the beginning of the summer, we really had to set them straight about what was appropriate and what was not.”
Jovana and Jelela Djukic, 23-year-old twins from Serbia, each spent their second summer on a J-1 Visa in Destin this year and described the church as more of their sponsor than their real one. After a rocky summer abroad in 2013 residing in a crammed room at Motel 6, the twins found a better situation living with church members Bud and Linda Weaver after getting to know them at J-1 dinners the year before.
The twins even have taken to calling the Weavers their “American parents.”
“We were lucky,” said Jelena, who recently graduated college with a hospitality degree. Her sister studied economics.
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The girls each worked two jobs over the summer, between 16 and 18 hours a day, to earn money to pay school fees and purchase things like cellphones and other electronics that are too expensive at home in Serbia.
To put things in perspective, the twins outlined their father’s monthly salary as equal to about $250.
Here in the U.S., they can earn that much in just two days.