Student work visa conference in Myrtle Beach draws questions about jobs

Though international students come here on work visas each summer, their primary goal is not earning a lot of money.

That’s what Elizabeth Dickerson, a representative from the U.S. State Department, told those gathered for a meeting of the International Students Outreach Project in Myrtle Beach on Wednesday.

Students from other countries here on J-1 work-travel visas are not supposed to supplant full-time local workers, Dickerson said, but are to be hired only in temporary, part-time jobs that can keep them self sufficient while they are here learning about the United States.

Other goals of task force members: Making sure students have a good experience here, and keeping them safe. Police here have seen a pattern in which foreign students become crime victims, meeting leaders said.

Ultimately, the J-1 work-travel visa is a ticket to a cultural exchange program, Dickerson said.

“They really become our ambassadors to their home countries,” said Dickerson, one of a group of speakers who urged employers and other community members to engage with the students.

Community involvement can help their transition to a different culture and send them home with a positive perception of the United States and the communities they’ve lived in for four months, she said.

The project is the work of the International Student Task Force, a group that has been around Myrtle Beach for years, but has recently refocused its tasks toward student safety and a better experience here because police have noticed international students have been the targets of crimes and often have a lack of understanding about to community, what’s available to them, where they can go for help and some of the aspects of American life they might like to learn.

“We felt we needed to be more proactive,” said Myrtle Beach Police Lt. Amy Prock, who led Wednesday’s meeting. “We trying to make it a community effort.”

Most of the audience was made up of business people who have contact with the international students who come each summer, but some in the audience wanted to ask Dickerson about employers hiring the students instead of local workers, especially in a resort town where many of the locals work multiple part-time seasonal jobs just to be able to afford to live here.

“The No. 1 priority is the American economy,” Dickerson said. “All employers should take all steps possible to make sure they hire local workers. But if they need more help than they can find locally, the international students come here willing to work hard.”

She pointed to some of the jobs given to international students, such as counselors at summer camps -- jobs that typically pay less than minimum wage and involve working with big groups of children -- that are not being snapped up by American college students.

With those jobs come responsibility on the part of the employers, speakers at Wednesday’s meeting said, to treat the international students the same as they would any other employee, including making sure they are paid fairly.

While most of the international students’ jobs must be vetted and confirmed before they can even apply for their J-1 visas, that isn’t always the case. In the past, there have been problems with promised jobs not materializing, or not being exactly as the employer offered, said Phil Simon, who represented a group of agencies that sponsor the international students.

Jobs are also monitored to make sure they are not permanent and not intended to be, Dickerson said. The students are not supposed to be hired into positions that local workers would or could use as primary employment. Even fast-food jobs are supposed to be off limits to the visiting student workers.

Simon and other meeting leaders encouraged employers to help the students have a good experience while they are here by including them in employee activities, encouraging them to use their free time to learn more about the city where they live, the region and even the country.

Today’s international student could be a leader in his or her home country in the future, Simon said, and they will take home their experiences and their understanding of the United States. That could influence the development of countries that are just starting down the path of democracy, he said.

“The benefits of their visits here are education, friendships, public diplomacy and the breaking down of barriers between cultures,” he said.

Anne Marie Conestabile, leader of the International Student Outreach Program in Ocean City, Md., came to Wednesday’s meeting to share her experiences.

Her program formed right after 9/11, when hundreds of international students flocked to her church seeking help and reassurance.

“They didn’t know if Ocean City was next to be targeted,” she said. “They couldn’t reach their families and they needed community and companionship.”

Once she saw some of the students’ needs, she and other church members decided they had a lot to offer, holding free meals for the students, helping them connect with doctors, lawyers and other service professionals they might need during their stay, holding community-building activities helping them better understand American culture.

Many of the students come from countries where the police are not to be trusted, Simon said as an example. While here, they need to understand that they can go to the police for help, and that they will not be harassed or punished for doing so.

While international students have to learn about American culture, Americans also have to understand the challenges the students face, including language barriers and even the time difference, meeting leaders said.

For example, Myrtle Beach Police Detective Wil Kitelinger said, he used to get frustrated when he’d see foreign students out in the middle of the night -- until he asked what they were doing.

“That’s when their families and friends back in Europe are awake,” he said. That’s often when the students find places where they can get wireless access to go on Facebook, make calls or even do business like banking, because it’s the only time they can contact home.

But being out in the middle of the night can also lead to trouble. The police department discovered that the students didn’t often put their money in local banks, and carry large amounts of cash with them. And because they don’t usually have cars, bicycles are the preferred method of transportation. Criminals who target the students sometimes push them off their bikes and rob them, Kitelinger said.

Many students are reluctant to file reports, he said, because they either don’t trust the police or think that if someone is arrested, they will have to remain here in the country until the case is settled.

Kitelinger encouraged employers to help students make police reports if they know one of their student employees has been harmed.

“We can’t catch people if we don’t have reports,” he said.

Simon also encouraged employers to contact their student employees’ sponsors if there are issues, concerns or problems.

The sponsoring agencies are most often in contact with the students and while the State Department will hear complaints, it will refer people back to the students’ sponsors for direct involvement.

The sponsors provide students with information on what to expect when they come to America, but it’s also incumbent on each community to help the students, too, Simon and others said.

“It takes a village,” Conestabile said.