Clare
Francine Black, Staff Reporter
CARIBBEAN IMMIGRANT Services (CIS), which is representing some 210 Caribbean teachers who are due to be sent home from the United States by the end of July, will be stepping up its campaign to lobby New York-based officials to allow them to remain in the country.
This is the latest move by the body which has been making several attempts to convince authorities to allow the teachers to remain in the U.S. until they acquire the required documentation.
Irwine Clare, Sr., managing director at CIS, told The Gleaner in an interview that he and other persons who have been helping believe it was essential that they step up the campaign for the teachers to remain as time was running out.
"Come June 30, the teachers are out of a job. They have 30 days to vacate the country in order to maintain their immigrant status. We are perusing opportunities for them to remain there whilst we find a way to get them legalised," he said.
In May the teachers received letters from the New York Board of Education stating that their jobs would be terminated at the end of June as they had not switched their J1 visas to the requisite H1B.
Some of the teachers are from Guyana, but more than 100 of them are Jamaican. Mr. Clare noted that the chances of getting the authorities to allow them to stay were slim but they were willing to try.
"It's a long shot but the travesty would be if we were never to have tried," he said.
Some 110 teachers of the group have secured H1B visas which will become effective in October and will return to resume jobs. However, 98 teachers do not have the visas and are currently 'at risk'. The latter group will have to try to get recruited when they return or seek jobs in other countries.
