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J-1 students

THE SUMMER WORKFORCE

State Dept. Says Provincetown ‘Is Not Being Singled Out’ on J-1 Visas

Employers wait to see if U.S. embassy will lift ‘holds’ on student workers

By Paul Benson May 1, 2024

PROVINCETOWN — In a meeting between U.S. Rep. Bill Keating and a team of State Dept. officials on April 29, the agency assured the congressman that Provincetown “is not being singled out” for a delay in the approval of J-1 visas or a decrease in the number of student work visas being issued.

J-1 visa holder Kristina Valerieva Tsoneva, right, worked at the Nor’East Beer Garden last summer. Student workers like her are essential to Provincetown’s economy. (Photo by Elias Duncan)

“The State Dept. told us that all systems are go,” Keating said, “that Provincetown is not being singled out, and that not only is there no cutback in visas but in fact they’re on track to have more Summer Work Travel participants in Provincetown this year than last year, based on current numbers.

“The State Dept. clearly confirmed that the issue is with each individual’s application and not with the town or specific employers,” he added.

Keating’s office had asked the federal agency to explain an email sent by the U.S. embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria to numerous J-1 visa applicants on April 12 advising them that their applications were on hold and that they should find “a different employer, preferably in a city other than Provincetown.”

“They had not been aware of that, they were glad we brought it to their attention, and they said they’re moving quickly to let applicants that are on hold know exactly what their final steps are for their application,” Keating said. “They were curious about the wording of that email and said things could have been communicated better.”

For more than two decades, Provincetown has hosted college students in the hundreds from countries around the world, especially from Eastern Europe, during their summer vacation. The J-1 Summer Work Travel program is run by the State Dept. as a cultural exchange that allows students a full summer of work in American restaurants, hotels, and retail shops, along with extra weeks in September to explore the country before flying home.

At one time, Provincetown was a popular destination for Irish and Czech students, but as those countries adopted the European common currency, the origin countries of participants shifted east, to places where U.S. dollars go further. In recent years, a majority of J-1 students on the Outer Cape have been from Bulgaria.

The 351 students who worked in Provincetown last year were essential to the operation of many hotels, restaurants, and shops in town, and Keating said he made sure the State Dept. understood how dependent the town is on summer workers.

“Just a handful of employees can make a huge difference in the hours a business is able to be open and the service it can deliver,” Keating said. “These workers are vital to our local small businesses and the Cape’s tourist economy, and time is of the essence because the season is already starting.”

Worries on the Ground

At a meeting in Provincetown Town Hall that took place while Keating was talking to the State Dept., Town Manager Alex Morse, Provincetown Business Guild (PBG) director Trevor Pittinger, executive director of the Bulgarian travel agency Cool Travel Maria Dzhenkova, and several worried business owners discussed the “holds” on student workers’ visas.

At least seven members of the PBG with 35 J-1 applicants among them have seen most or all of their applicants put on hold and directed to find another employer, said Pittinger. More than 30 of those positions came with housing already leased by the employer. At the same time, many Provincetown employers have had no trouble getting their students approved. The worry in the room was that the embassy in Sofia had blacklisted certain employers without telling them.

Tom Boland, co-owner of Far Land Provisions, said that two of his employees last year had gotten pedicab licenses from the town and then told him about it. He told them that driving a pedicab was not allowed for J-1 students.

Boland said he believed those students had never actually worked a pedicab shift, but because they were on the list of licensed drivers, all applicants to his business were being directed elsewhere.

“It’s the secrecy that’s frustrating,” Boland said. “This decision wasn’t made the day before it happened. It was decided a while ago, and no one told us anything.”

Dzhenkova said she had flown in from Bulgaria to help business owners deal with the visa freeze.

“These program rules are very important to the State Dept.,” said Dzhenkova. “It’s OK for the students to have a second job, and it’s OK to work more than 40 hours a week, but all the second jobs have to be approved by their American sponsor organizaiton.”

Pedicabs are explicitly forbidden by the State Dept., she said. Businesses that had any of their students driving a pedicab last year are the ones facing trouble now, she said.

“I think the employers and the town need to really show that they are taking these rules seriously,” said Dzhenkova. “Many of the employers didn’t know the rules and were thinking it’s the student’s job to follow them, and now they’re running into this problem. The rules are important.”

The day after his State Dept. briefing, Keating said he would follow up with the agency to be sure that employers are not blacklisted based on their employees’ second jobs.

“Based on the briefing, it isn’t the case that employers were being blackballed,” Keating said. “They told us that. But we will be following up to make sure the implementation is consistent with what they told us. We want to be kept in the loop.”

Keating added that employers who are having visa difficulties can contact his Cape and Islands regional director, Andrew Nelson, for assistance.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Innkeeper Paul Schofield Is Charged With Assaulting J-1 Worker

Police treated J-1 students’ reports of abuse as civil matters, not crimes

By Sam Pollak Oct 25, 2023

PROVINCETOWN — A Sept. 7 health inspection of housing violations at 5 Center St. precipitated the arrest of property owner Paul Schofield after Health Director Lezli Rowell found Schofield assaulting four J-1 visa workers who were renting living quarters from him.

Emanuil Ninov and Renata Alenina with Dolphin Fleet manager Richard Kelly. (Photo courtesy Emanuil Ninov)

The four Bulgarian students, Emanuil Ninov, Renata Alenina, Alexandra Atanasova, and Christian Bratanov, said that Schofield’s arrest followed months of harassment, assault, theft, and substandard living conditions.

Schofield runs the Rose Acre Guest Apartments on Center Street and the Prince Albert Guest House on Commercial Street as well as a seven-bedroom rental at 7 Center St. with his husband, Dr. Andrew Jorgensen, chief medical officer at Outer Cape Health Services (OCHS).

Two of the students and their employers at Mad as a Hatter and the Dolphin Fleet allege that Schofield refused to pay the students for work they did at Schofield and Jorgensen’s properties. Then began a series of further abuses, they say: he broke into their apartment, stole money, destroyed their personal belongings, and assaulted them in his attempts to evict them. The charges are also in documents obtained by the Independent through public records requests.

Police reports from July and August show that the students, along with Kristyn Samok, owner of Mad as a Hatter, and Richard Kelly, manager at the Dolphin Fleet, went to the Provincetown police several times before the police ultimately arrested Schofield.

Schofield did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.

According to Renata Alenina, she and the other students arrived in Provincetown in early June without housing but with job offers. They were four of over 300 international students who worked in Provincetown this summer through the J-1 visa program — a program designed to give foreign college students an American experience.

Alenina said that the students found Schofield by knocking on doors near Samok’s store on Commercial Street. Schofield offered them a one-bedroom unit for $125 per week each, with an agreement that they would also work at his guest houses.

The detached one-bedroom unit at the back of 5 Center Street was small, the students said. According to the assessor’s database, the apartment’s footprint is 311 square feet — well below the state sanitary code’s requirement for minimum square footage for four occupants.

But the students made do. Atanasova and Bratanov stayed in the bedroom, and Ninov and Alenina slept on a mattress in the kitchen.

They were grateful to find housing. They had been warned by veteran J-1 workers about Provincetown’s housing shortage.

Lost Wages

The students moved in on June 16 and immediately began work for Schofield at $20 an hour. Ninov and Bratanov’s tasks included painting rooms, gardening, and maintenance work. Alenina and Atanasova worked at the Prince Albert as housekeepers.

The students kept track of the hours they worked on timesheets, which they provided to the Independent. After the first week, Schofield paid them in cash, Ninov said.

But Schofield delayed signing any documents, the students said, including payroll, tax forms, and a formal lease. They began to worry about getting in trouble with their sponsor agency, the Council on International Educational Exchange, for taking on informal work.

“When we inquired about submitting payroll paperwork and a lease, he was evasive,” Ninov later wrote in a letter to the Mass. chapter of the ACLU. “Anytime we asked to be paid he stated he would come by later with the money, and, one time, he actually ran away from us and down the street to avoid the discussion.”

A few weeks in, according to the students, Schofield “started overloading us with an excessive workload, expecting us to work long and unreasonable hours,” Ninov wrote in his letter. The students were working up to 50 hours a week according to their timesheets, on top of the 20 hours they worked at their official workplaces.

Schofield’s behavior became unpredictable, they said. When the students approached him about their unpaid wages, Schofield “unjustly accused us of not fulfilling our responsibilities,” Ninov said in his letter. “When we asked for the money, he said we were lying about our hours,” Ninov told the Independent.

According to a police report filed on July 19, the students said Schofield owed them an estimated $7,500.

The students said they still have not received payment. They are now back in school in Bulgaria, and do not know if they wish to pursue legal action, or if they will even be able to from afar.

“We have lost hope in getting the money,” Alenina said.

The Role of the Police

Schofield began threatening to evict the students in mid-July after they completed work on the guest houses, Ninov said.

“After the job was over, he said he didn’t want us there anymore,” Ninov said. “I think that was his plan, to have us do the work and then make us leave.”

Ninov said that Schofield would appear at all hours of the day and night, demanding that they move out of the apartment within 24 hours. The students bought a camera to put outside their door, but later found the camera vandalized, they said.

Ninov wrote to Dr. Jorgensen, pleading with him to intervene. “Despite our hard work and dedication, Paul abruptly demanded that we vacate the property immediately, which, as we understand, contravenes the laws of Massachusetts,” Ninov wrote. “Given your esteemed position and influence, we kindly request your intervention to mediate this matter and help reach a fair and equitable resolution.”

Jorgensen never answered Ninov. Schofield texted Ninov on July 19, “you will not be meeting with my husband.”

Jorgensen did not respond to requests for comment for this article. The OCHS website no longer lists Jorgensen as chief medical officer, a position he had held since 2017. Jorgensen was listed as C.M.O. as recently as Sept. 25, according to internet archives. Inquiries to OCHS regarding Jorgensen’s status were not answered by the Independent’s deadline.

In the same July 19 text to Ninov, Schofield also said that, because the students no longer worked for him, he would be raising the rent to the standard motel price of $300 per night. “Remember you are in a motel,” the message read. “I can have the police remove you for non-payment any day.”

Later that day, Schofield arrived at the students’ unit and attempted to remove their belongings. According to Alenina, Atanasova attempted to block Schofield from entering the unit, at which point, they said, he shoved Atanasova.

Samok and Kelly brought the students to the Provincetown police station, where they detailed the alleged abuses to Officer Brendan Dabrolet. In a follow-up meeting with Dabrolet the next day, the students told him they discovered that $350 in cash they kept in the unit had disappeared.

Alenina “stated they feel very unsafe,” Dabrolet wrote in the police report, and that Alenina “did not sleep well last night due to fear that Schofield would enter the unit in the middle of the night.”

At the bottom of Dabrolet’s report, he wrote that he referred the students to Orleans District Court, “due to the situation being civil.”

According to the Mass Legal Help website, a landlord breaking into an apartment, physical assault, and burglary are all criminal offenses.

Local housing attorney Robert Lowe said that, while the dispute over evicting the students is a civil matter, if Schofield “went in their apartment and took money, that’s a criminal matter.”

The police were called again on Aug. 14 regarding Schofield’s aggressive conduct. According to the call log, Bratanov reported that Schofield had grabbed Ninov by the throat.

Officer Simon Saliba responded and wrote in his report, “All involved parties were advised to refrain from confronting each other until the eviction process is concluded. No crime involved.”

Schofield is no stranger to the Provincetown police. According to police reports from November and December 2022, a previous tenant said he had broken into the unit and stolen clothes and a voice recorder. In another report, the tenant alleged that Schofield “ransacked” his apartment and dumped his belongings outside.

Officer Dabrolet reported, after Schofield shut off that tenant’s water, that the tenant “did not want me to press any criminal charges.”

Theresa Cancelliere, assistant manager at Mad as a Hatter, said that Alenina and Atanasova would arrive at work distraught that nothing was being done. “They felt no one was standing up for them,” she said. “That’s what upset them the most.”

“For months the police knew what he was doing, but nothing changed,” Alenina told the Independent.

“I don’t know if it was because we were Bulgarian and not local people,” Ninov said.

Deputy Police Chief Gregory Hennick did not respond to emails and calls for comment for this article.

The Town Steps In

Schofield shut off the students’ water on Aug. 27, according to an email Richard Kelly sent to Lezli Rowell and Code Compliance Officer Aaron Hobart on Aug. 28.

Police records show that Kristyn Samok also called on Aug. 27 to report that Schofield had shut off the water, a criminal offense, according to Mass Legal Help.

Rowell and Hobart inspected the unit on Aug. 28. In her report, Rowell documented numerous violations of the state’s minimum standards of fitness for human habitation, including a lack of hot water in kitchen and bathroom sinks as well as a “trickle with inadequate water pressure” in the shower. Rowell also noted missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors as well as an expired fire extinguisher.

Hobart noted that the mattress in the kitchen where Ninov and Alenina slept had a cardboard headrest that abutted the oven.

Rowell ordered Schofield and Jorgensen to fix the violations within 24 hours and to schedule a follow-up inspection. That inspection, on Sept. 7, led to Schofield’s arrest.

According to the police report, Officer Saliba responded to a call from Rowell of a disturbance at 5 Center St. When he arrived, Saliba witnessed Schofield attempting to remove a mattress from the apartment, and elbowing Bratanov in the face when Bratanov tried to stop him.

Rowell confirmed that Schofield had assaulted Bratanov. Schofield was arrested and arraigned the next day at Orleans District Court, according to court records. He is charged with assault and battery, disorderly conduct, and destruction of property.

Ninov said that if Rowell hadn’t been there to witness the incident, he wondered whether any action would have been taken. “If they didn’t see it, I don’t know if anyone would have believed us,” he said.

The students were relocated to the Harbor Hotel the next day. They stayed there and then at the Sandcastle Resort for a total of 16 nights before returning to Bulgaria, according to Rowell.

Town Manager Alex Morse told the select board on Oct. 10 that the students were relocated because corrections to the unit they had rented from Schofield had not been made and Rowell had deemed it uninhabitable.

According to Morse, Schofield and Jorgensen still owe the town $3,111 for the students’ hotel stays. The board of health canceled the Oct. 19 meeting at which it planned to demand reimbursement. Chair Susan Troyan said that the town still plans on pursuing repayment.

“When we are not able to ensure that people are safe, we find housing for them,” said Troyan. “The town should not have to pay for it — the property owner should.”

Samok commended Rowell and other town staff for their work to help bring the students to safety. “The folks at town hall were really on top of it — the kids were comforted by that,” Samok said.

Along with Rowell, DEI Director Donna Walker supported the students throughout the summer, said Kelly. Walker helped Ninov write to the ACLU for legal help.

“I don’t know if it was in her purview, or if she just took it on,” Kelly said. “But she was a surrogate for help because there was no one else.”

“What all of us came to realize is that we don’t have anything that addresses what can happen to J-1 and H-2B visa holders here,” Walker told the Independent.

While a J-1 student’s sponsoring agency is the “first line of defense,” Walker said, Ninov said the students did not report to their sponsoring agency for fear they would be deported for working without proper paperwork, despite Schofield having rejected their attempts to obtain it.

“We lived in a nightmare for two months,” Ninov said. “It’s still a nightmare. I didn’t know anyone when I arrived in Provincetown. It was our first time in America, and then in one month I’m in the police station.

“I want to be back next summer,” Ninov said. “But I am scared for what might happen.”

CULTURAL EXCHANGE

5 Students Are Sent Home for Visa Violations

Many were unaware that J-1 visa holders cannot drive pedicabs

By Paul Benson Jul 12, 2023

PROVINCETOWN — It was news to many in Provincetown — including the owners of at least two pedicab companies and evidently to the town government as well — that the J-1 visa program that brings international students to the U.S. for a summer of work and travel specifically forbids them to drive pedicabs.

Georgi Todorov, co-owner of PTown Pedicabs, atop one of his bicycle chariots on Monday, July 3. (Photo by Oliver Egger)

There are 333 J-1 students in Provincetown this summer and another 43 still “in progress” on their visas, according to a State Dept. website. And it seems that for as long as there have been pedicabs here, international students have been pedaling them.

“This company has been open for 20 years, and the owners before us said that Irish J-1s used to drive,” said Galib Galib, who with his business partner, Georgi Todorov, bought Ptown Pedicabs in 2017. Galib, a U.S citizen, and Todorov, a green card holder, both first came to America from Bulgaria on the J-1 program, and the majority of their pedicab drivers this year were Bulgarians on J-1 visas.

The 37 sponsor agencies that organize the “Summer Work Travel” J-1 placements nationwide, however, were clear about the rules. When Jimmy Brazelton, managing director of GeoVisions, headquartered in Austin, Texas, found out that students his company had sponsored were driving pedicabs here, he flew to Provincetown and met with employers to find out who was driving — and whether they had abandoned their original jobs.

“A very small number of students were found to have violated a multitude of program rules, regulations, and requirements,” Brazelton wrote in an email to the Independent. “No matter how we become aware of program violations, we have a responsibility to take them seriously.”

Brazelton told Town Manager Alex Morse that five J-1 students in Provincetown were “being removed.”

According to the State Dept.’s website, “Participants found to be in violation of program regulations and/or sponsor’s rules may be terminated from the program,” at which point they are expected to leave the country immediately.

Brazelton would not tell the Independent or Morse how he became aware that J-1 students were driving pedicabs.

“The only reason this seems to have come up,” Morse wrote to the select board, “is because ‘someone in Town’ (there is a lot of speculation as to who) reached out to file a complaint that there were J-1s illegally operating pedicabs in Town. Mr. Brazelton wouldn’t tell me who or how this was raised to him.”

The speculation about who tipped off Brazelton has been intense.

Rumors that a local business owner who was upset with the pedicab companies intentionally had their fleet of drivers deported enraged many people here — including the businessman who was the subject of those rumors.

“It is so outrageous,” said Joachim Sandbichler, who with his husband, Mark Ferrari, owns three restaurants on Commercial Street: Pepe’s Wharf, the Patio, and Freeman’s. “We totally renovated staff housing last year for J-1 students to have a place to stay. We pay a $750 co-pay for their rentals. To insinuate that we would do anything to harm any of them, whether they work for us or not, is just painful. It’s disappointing, and it’s nonsense.”

Sandbichler said he has 34 J-1 students working for him this year. Students who work for him are often promoted into management jobs, he said, and several have moved here and started businesses.

Sandbichler insisted that neither he nor his husband had any role in initiating the visa enforcement action. He said he had only recently heard about Brazelton’s visit because the company that sponsors most of his student employees — Greenheart Exchange, based in Chicago — had never contacted him to ask whether his employees might also work driving pedicabs.

Sandbichler said that none of his employees were working for pedicab companies this year, although he said that last year some did.

A related rumor was that Bruno Magnun Robinson, the manager at the Patio, had alerted the sponsor agencies. Word was that he did so by filing a police report about an incident that had happened three weeks earlier in which he was called a homophobic slur by a J-1 student who is also a pedicab driver.

There is no police report regarding that incident, Barbara Peters, the records clerk at the Provincetown Police Dept., confirmed to the Independent.

Magnun Robinson also denied having alerted any visa sponsors.

As for having been called a name, “I had to move on, to forgive and forget,” Magnun Robinson told the Independent. “Now people are pointing at me on the street, saying I’m this monster who deported people. I’m an immigrant myself. I would never do that to anyone.” Magnun Robinson is from Brazil.

There were 55 licensed pedicab drivers in town as of June 21 — the day that Brazelton asked the town’s licensing agent, Linda Fiorella, for the list. Forty-three of the names on the list appear to be Eastern European, with last names ending in -ov, -ev, -ova, or -eva.

The document Fiorella provided to Brazelton, and subsequently to the Independent, does not list the visa status of those licensed drivers. The town does ask international workers to provide copies of their visas in order to receive a pedicab operator license, however.

Several people involved in the pedicab business, including Karen Nash, the owner of B/well Pedicabs, Galib and Todorov, and licensed pedicab driver Ilvi Shetev, said they had not known that J-1 students could not drive pedicabs — and pointed out that apparently town hall did not know either.

“My name was on the pedicab list because I got a license this year but didn’t drive,” said Shetev. “I wanted to, but I have a main job, and it just didn’t work out.”

When the sponsor agency called, it wanted to know if Shetev was actually working the job he had originally signed up for, he said.

“They called me and asked if I was working my shifts, and the next day they called my employer and asked him if I was working my shifts,” Shetev said. “I work at Tin Pan Alley, and my boss there said, ‘Yes, he really is working,’ because I was,” Shetev said.

GeoVision may not be the only company to have received correspondence about pedicab drivers — but on the long holiday weekend, the Independent’s calls to Greenheart Exchange and Intrax Work/Travel were not returned.

The loss for the J-1 students will be more than financial, Todorov said, because driving pedicabs is a great way for young people to interact with Americans from all over the country, and because Provincetown has an especially diverse group of riders. His business partner agreed. “Our drivers didn’t just like pedicab — they loved it,” said Galib.

Provincetown Independent summer fellow Oliver Egger contributed reporting for this article.

CULTURAL EXCHANGE

5 Students Are Sent Home for Visa Violations

Many were unaware that J-1 visa holders cannot drive pedicabs

By Paul Benson Jul 5, 2023