By The subject of USFK contractors losing their jobs due to the reinterpretation of the SOFA agreement has been a hot topic here at the ROK Drop. This topic will probably only heat up now that the Stars & Stripes’ Erik Slavin has published an additional report on this issue.
Here is a perfect example from the article of how the SOFA change has caused a contractor to lose his job:
When Charles Hoelderlin accepted a job as an on-base credit union manager in 2005, Contracting Command Korea approved the move and his Status of Forces Agreement visa.
Nearly four years later, Hoelderlin was forced to leave his post and the country when CCK officials changed their minds about how the regulation governing his visa should be interpreted.
Hoelderlin wasn’t eligible for SOFA, they said, because he spent three months with a legal 2004 South Korean working visa teaching English.
Hoelderlin was told by CCK officials last fall that had he been hired by the credit union from the United States, he could have remained.
A stateside hiring point wasn’t necessary for Hoelderlin and more than 2,000 other contractors, until last year.
“It seems if they gave us good direction to start … I could have gone back to the States and been properly hired,” Hoelderlin said. “They’re the ones who created the problem and now … they’re the ones deciding who is going to suffer the consequences. And we’re living at their mercy.”
Hoelderlin is one of at least 48 U.S. Forces Korea contractors who have lost a visa — and in many cases, the job that relied on it — since officials began enforcing the new interpretation of residence requirements under the SOFA. [Stars & Stripes]
Another guy profiled lost his job because he attended Yonsei University to study Korean before being hired by USFK. So it is pretty clear that a number of people are getting screwed by this Visa change. This frustration with the firings is only growing in wake of the recent Army Audit Agency report that disclosed the ten of millions of dollars USFK is losing in fraud to locally hired Korean contractors every year while at the same time USFK is trying to fire a large number of their American contractors.
Here is where the decision to reinterpret the SOFA agreement to fire all these contractors gets murky:
When Stripes originally wrote about the SOFA revocations in October, USFK said the new enforcement came as a result of an Army Audit Agency audit of Contract Command Korea.
Stripes has since obtained the 2008 audit report. The 34-page report never mentions contractor residence, violations of USFK residence regulations or even SOFA.
So the decision to reinterpret the SOFA was done without a recommendation from the Army Audit Agency to do so according to this article.
However, I received an e-mail today saying that this is not true. According to the e-mailer, this report has not been finalized or released yet and that the report was not attended to address the SOFA status of American contractors anyway. The e-mailer believes that the Stars & Stripes will have to retract their article when all the facts come out.
I guess we will see, but even if the report does not address the SOFA status of American contractors then why did USFK tell Stars & Stripes it did back in October? Like I said it is murky with only more frustration growing by those who could be effected by all of this.
11:14 am on February 9th, 2009 1
Yes, outright lies tend to make all situations “murky”.
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7:54 pm on February 9th, 2009 2
Like I’ve said before, this is just the commander of CCK wanting to do “house cleaning” by finding any reason to dump any contractor who’s been in Korea too long. I don’t know whats up with these people, they think that because their military and they have to cycle in and out of here (in route to the desert) that we should too. Don’t they understand that the continuity over here is maintained by the GS and contractor crowd because the military guys are too busy with training and short tours.
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11:11 pm on February 9th, 2009 3
THEOTHERGUY, I’m never one for conspiracy theories but this smells of something more sinister than simple stupid behavior. Korean hires have been known to pay out the nose for a position both here and in the US. I know a highly qualified individual who gets the cold shoulder from a department that has “temporarily” hired 4 unqualified Korean contractors for years. I understand not keeping a job open if there is no-one available but this smells of corruption.
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3:09 am on February 10th, 2009 4
The follow is not an equivalent issue, but it shows what can happen when a government agency decided to retroactively mandate the enforcement of an immigration status verification policy and you scale up to where it impacts hundred of thousands of contractors over the past 10 years.
The contracting companies do have it in them to raise a stink when they want to and get their existing employees grandfathered in.
New Immigration Regulation Eased After Firms Complain
I guess the situation for contracting companies in USFK didn’t reach a high enough threshold for the them to complain. But I just wanted to point out that there is an existing precedent out there for them to have used in case they cared to fight it.
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3:14 am on February 10th, 2009 5
correction: “The follow” -> “The following”
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5:11 am on February 10th, 2009 6
I wonder if this some connection to the 5 year rule. I recall, many years ago, the military had a rule that individuals should not be outside the US for over 7 years at one time. Theory was they may become less loyal to the US if they stayed away too long. Not sure if this rule is still in effect. However, this all does not make sense when you look at individuals who were on active duty their last 6 or so years here in Korea, retire in country, and take a GS or contractor job and remain here for 15 or more plus years. Also some folks alternate between contractor and GS – taking a contractor job to skirt the 5 year GS rule and then going back to GS later. Of course we have a large percent of the higher ranking GS who have been here 10,15,20 and even 30 years straight and no one seems to have a problem with that. Best way to solve the issue is to require all new hires to be stateside hires only. I’m not sure if you can legally retire from the military in Korea. I was told by the personnel office years ago that military retirement could only take place on American soil -Guam was OK.
Now I see where folks retire in Korea and Germany without ever returning to American soil. Maybe the rules have changed.
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6:39 am on February 10th, 2009 7
The reporter used the same AAA from the 8 February 2009 Sunday article and linked it to the IC program. The report has nothing to do with the IC program (read Sunday’s article to find out what that report has to do with).
The AAA report that states the IC program rules were not being enforced and contractors were getting IC status erroneously has not been released yet.
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7:06 pm on February 16th, 2009 8
Wow, it gets crazier and crazier everyday.
Grandfather Clause. And then use a tighter review process from now on. The Korean Governement still has no problem with these people.
How do spouses, dependedents and GS’s qualify for SOFA if they are hired locally into a contractor position? If you have SOFA from other means, then become a contractor, doesnt that make you not an ordinarily resident of the US and ineligible? So many dependents have gained a job this way. And will in the future. Or does the reg state that if you have SOFA by other means, it rolls over to the new job? No precedent, and nothing in writing. Come to think of it, that would mean that if anyone even changed contracts, they would be considered not ordinarily resident, and not eligible.
What a can off worms. Cant wait to see the Audit. Is the other Audit posted online anywhere?
Grandfather Clause.
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7:06 pm on February 16th, 2009 9
Not ordinarily resident in the States I mean.
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3:41 pm on March 26th, 2009 10
Did the Audit turn out to be the one everyone thought? Was the emial’er wrong?
Doesn’t the AAA concern itself with material fraud and waste? Why would anything pertaining to the 700-19 be in there anyway.
Still doesn’t make sense.
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8:37 pm on May 27th, 2009 11
Quote from Star article…..
If a contractor spends more than a month in South Korea without SOFA status, CCK “determines (the) individual is not ‘ordinarily a resident of the U.S.’ and intended to live outside of the U.S.,” the presentation stated.
By their own definition, even if someone is waiting for CCK to process thier paperwork, they would become ineligible for a SOFA visa after 30 days. It routinely takes CCK more than 30 days to process SOFA paperwork.
It just get more ridiculous…… These people are completely out of control.
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May 28th, 2009 at 1:03 am
What about people who live in a different country (perhaps Philippines or Thailand) and are denied SOFA status? What the hell does living in any other country have to do with ROK/US SOAFA status?
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