When it comes to work visas, don't make any assumptions
And if you're a Polish emigre who is working here on U.S. or British passports, you may be in for a new level of hassle - including an insistence that you get a Polish passport.
The new - and erratically applied - policies apparently stem from Jan. 1 changes in the law regulating foreigners' activities here.
But many consultants on visa and immigration issues seem to be unaware of the perils that can confront their clients from border guards' ad hoc interpretations of the law. They are incorrectly reassuring their expatriate clients that they can travel on tourist visas if their work permits have expired.
Hortex Chief Financial Officer Ron Nawrocki, an American born son of Polish emigre parents, was one victim of misinformation. His work permit and visa expired May 10. He tried earlier that month to get it extended while on a trip to Berlin but the Polish consulate there said, "No way." They told him a new visa had to be done in his home country. He then was told by Hortex officials and also by private visa consultants that he could use a three-month tourist visa to come and go (dating from the time of his re-entry from Berlin) before he had to get his visa renewed on a U.S. trip.
Wrong, said the passport official at Warsaw's Okecie airport May 21, as Nawrocki prepared to leave for a weekend in Paris.
"The passport guy says there is a problem. He said my work visa has expired. I said, 'Yes, that's why I am using a tourist visa for three months,' " Nawrocki related. "He said that is not valid - not if your work visa is expired. He said I was in the country illegally. And that if I went on to France, I would not be able to get back into Poland," at least not until he had gone to the U.S. to renew his visa. Nawrocki said the Okecie officer told him, "it was my obligation to leave the country May 10 when my visa expired."
"I was just flabbergasted," said Nawrocki, who also owns a business consulting company and has worked here for PepsiCo and Pioneer, in addition to Hortex. He decided not to risk leaving but was irate. "I feel like I'm being treated like this refugee who is coming in trying to milk the Polish system. But I own a company here, I'm paying a lot of taxes, corporate and personal - and then these guys make me feel like a criminal."
"And if the rules are that way, how come they're not clear?" Nawrocki said.
Since what the airport passport agent said ran counter to what everyone else had told him, he did a reality check with his Hortex colleagues. "They said, 'Well, we didn't expect this to happen.' "
Then he talked to U.S. Consulate officials. "They said it is rare - but these are the rules under that law, which are being very strictly enforced in a few situations."
Bottom line, under the rationale used for Nawrocki, is that if a work visa expires, you cannot automatically switch to using the three-month tourist visa. It might be permitted, it might not be. "This goes back to the new law on foreigners, which is adding additional bureaucracy and complications - the only new benefit is the ability to get a temporary residence permit for two years, Nawrocki said. But, surprise, surprise - you can't apply for that, as Nawrocki was in the process of doing, if your existing visa has less than three months to run.
And, of course, the $500 for his unused ticket to Paris was not refundable, LOT Polish Airlines' officials told him.
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The situation with Anglo-Poles seems different but even more confounding.
Some of them have dual passports - say, Polish and British. Some use those interchangeably. That seems to be cause for trouble these days with the border guard.
"We ask our people to be very, very sure that their documents are all in order," says British Embassy commercial counselor Stephen Pattison. Americans who are Polish emigres say they are having more ominous problems. One woman who left Poland two decades ago and has been working here for U.S. or British companies on her U.S. passport for most of this decade had a rude shock this spring. The Polish consulate in New York refused to renew her visa on her American passport. "They're saying, 'You're Polish, not American,' and that I should have a Polish passport," she said. "This is absurd. If you are of Polish origin and born here but emigrated to the United States, you're using an American passport," she said.
She did not want to talk on the record because, for now, she finds herself in limbo - without a valid visa and not knowing for sure if she should or should not apply, unwillingly, to get a Polish passport. She had not talked to the U.S. Embassy about it but said, "They must be aware of it because many of my Polish-American friends are having similar problems," she said.
She has a home and children in the United States and spends much time there, while working in Poland. She assumed - until hearing about Nawrocki - that she could easily shift to a tourist visa, at least temporarily.
She said the situation is even more strange - or estranged - for Polish-born Canadians. Unlike Americans, they need a Polish visa to come here as tourists. "And suddenly they're being denied Polish visas on their Canadian passports - and also are being told they have to get Polish passports," she said. "And so they're just not coming. That tourist traffic is just drying up from there."
She wasn't sure what lay behind this. She is speculating that the new law on foreigners may have given rise to some confusion within the passport office, perhaps - inexplicably - enabling individual passport agents to make their own interpretations of the differences "between nationality and citizenship." "But it's forcing people to say - for reasons that are invalid - that they are 'Polish' because they were born here," she said, or, if they don't do that, to in effect renounce their Polish citizenship.
She had seen no reason to do that before and doesn't want to do it now. But she also chooses for now to remain an American citizen - working in Poland.
The new - and erratically applied - policies apparently stem from Jan. 1 changes in the law regulating foreigners' activities here.
But many consultants on visa and immigration issues seem to be unaware of the perils that can confront their clients from border guards' ad hoc interpretations of the law. They are incorrectly reassuring their expatriate clients that they can travel on tourist visas if their work permits have expired.
Hortex Chief Financial Officer Ron Nawrocki, an American born son of Polish emigre parents, was one victim of misinformation. His work permit and visa expired May 10. He tried earlier that month to get it extended while on a trip to Berlin but the Polish consulate there said, "No way." They told him a new visa had to be done in his home country. He then was told by Hortex officials and also by private visa consultants that he could use a three-month tourist visa to come and go (dating from the time of his re-entry from Berlin) before he had to get his visa renewed on a U.S. trip.
Wrong, said the passport official at Warsaw's Okecie airport May 21, as Nawrocki prepared to leave for a weekend in Paris.
"The passport guy says there is a problem. He said my work visa has expired. I said, 'Yes, that's why I am using a tourist visa for three months,' " Nawrocki related. "He said that is not valid - not if your work visa is expired. He said I was in the country illegally. And that if I went on to France, I would not be able to get back into Poland," at least not until he had gone to the U.S. to renew his visa. Nawrocki said the Okecie officer told him, "it was my obligation to leave the country May 10 when my visa expired."
"I was just flabbergasted," said Nawrocki, who also owns a business consulting company and has worked here for PepsiCo and Pioneer, in addition to Hortex. He decided not to risk leaving but was irate. "I feel like I'm being treated like this refugee who is coming in trying to milk the Polish system. But I own a company here, I'm paying a lot of taxes, corporate and personal - and then these guys make me feel like a criminal."
"And if the rules are that way, how come they're not clear?" Nawrocki said.
Since what the airport passport agent said ran counter to what everyone else had told him, he did a reality check with his Hortex colleagues. "They said, 'Well, we didn't expect this to happen.' "
Then he talked to U.S. Consulate officials. "They said it is rare - but these are the rules under that law, which are being very strictly enforced in a few situations."
Bottom line, under the rationale used for Nawrocki, is that if a work visa expires, you cannot automatically switch to using the three-month tourist visa. It might be permitted, it might not be. "This goes back to the new law on foreigners, which is adding additional bureaucracy and complications - the only new benefit is the ability to get a temporary residence permit for two years, Nawrocki said. But, surprise, surprise - you can't apply for that, as Nawrocki was in the process of doing, if your existing visa has less than three months to run.
And, of course, the $500 for his unused ticket to Paris was not refundable, LOT Polish Airlines' officials told him.
l l l
The situation with Anglo-Poles seems different but even more confounding.
Some of them have dual passports - say, Polish and British. Some use those interchangeably. That seems to be cause for trouble these days with the border guard.
"We ask our people to be very, very sure that their documents are all in order," says British Embassy commercial counselor Stephen Pattison. Americans who are Polish emigres say they are having more ominous problems. One woman who left Poland two decades ago and has been working here for U.S. or British companies on her U.S. passport for most of this decade had a rude shock this spring. The Polish consulate in New York refused to renew her visa on her American passport. "They're saying, 'You're Polish, not American,' and that I should have a Polish passport," she said. "This is absurd. If you are of Polish origin and born here but emigrated to the United States, you're using an American passport," she said.
She did not want to talk on the record because, for now, she finds herself in limbo - without a valid visa and not knowing for sure if she should or should not apply, unwillingly, to get a Polish passport. She had not talked to the U.S. Embassy about it but said, "They must be aware of it because many of my Polish-American friends are having similar problems," she said.
She has a home and children in the United States and spends much time there, while working in Poland. She assumed - until hearing about Nawrocki - that she could easily shift to a tourist visa, at least temporarily.
She said the situation is even more strange - or estranged - for Polish-born Canadians. Unlike Americans, they need a Polish visa to come here as tourists. "And suddenly they're being denied Polish visas on their Canadian passports - and also are being told they have to get Polish passports," she said. "And so they're just not coming. That tourist traffic is just drying up from there."
She wasn't sure what lay behind this. She is speculating that the new law on foreigners may have given rise to some confusion within the passport office, perhaps - inexplicably - enabling individual passport agents to make their own interpretations of the differences "between nationality and citizenship." "But it's forcing people to say - for reasons that are invalid - that they are 'Polish' because they were born here," she said, or, if they don't do that, to in effect renounce their Polish citizenship.
She had seen no reason to do that before and doesn't want to do it now. But she also chooses for now to remain an American citizen - working in Poland.
