Visa-less professors begin term unable to teach class

Observing wasn’t in the lesson plans for two new foreign national faculty members. However that’s what they ended up doing the first week of school after a delay in receiving work visas prevented them from legally teaching at the University.

Dr. Naomi Kagawa, assistant professor of communications, waited and watched for nearly a week while other professors taught her classes. Kagawa was notified electronically that her visa was approved, but had to wait for the go-ahead from the University’s officials before teaching.

“In the meantime, I was delighted to meet the students,” Kagawa said. “I just couldn’t speak from the perspective of a teacher.”

Though not considered late, the visas arrived after the start of classes this semester as a result of an ever-lengthening process of approval, said Joe Vorsas, director of human resources.

Paperwork for the visa application packet has to be compiled by Vorsas and the prospective professor. “Transcripts have to be evaluated to see if they meet our standards. The Texas Workforce Commission has to do a prevailing wage study to determine we are paying that person a fair wage and not discriminating against them because they are a foreign national. That takes awhile,” Vorsas said. Once completed, the paperwork is sent to the Office of International Student and Scholar Services at UT Austin, a department devoted entirely to visas and the needs of foreign students. Vorsas said an immigration attorney is in charge of that department.

Several branches of The University of Texas system utilize the services of UT Austin’s OISS office, so there are bottlenecks at certain times of the year, mostly running up to the fall semester, Vorsas said. “We pay them a fee to prepare documentation to submit for the visas,” Vorsas said. “Hopefully at some point in time we will be able to justify having our own immigration person here.”

The visa application packet is completed and submitted to the Department of Homeland Security. “The processing time varies. In the past, it was taking from six weeks to two and a half months for them to say, ‘yes, that person is approved to start teaching,’” Vorsas said. “Now it can take as long as five months.”

Vorsas has seen the approval time increase in the years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks. “They are checking people out much more closely and I think that is part of the reason the process has slowed down,” he said.

Vorsas said he received notification prior to the first class day that the visas were approved, but was advised to wait until the hard copy arrived in the mail before giving approval to begin teaching. “We are very meticulous because it is federal immigration stuff and it is wrapped up in the Department of Homeland Security,” he said.

“We don’t bend the rules,” Vorsas said.”