
One of the things I was warned about before accepting an invitation to become Chaplain to a continental European Anglican Church, was having to cope with a high turnover of members of the congregation. Many people come to major European cities as exchange students, visiting lecturers or on short-term contracts for international companies. Therefore, they may only worship with you for a few months and then move on. Just as you feel you have got to know them, they are leaving. The constant round of farewells I was warned, could become quite dispiriting.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed so they say. Therefore when an American couple, Tom & Myra, came to St. Clement’s for the first time on my first Sunday last September, I soon discovered that they would only be worshipping with us until the year end. Tom had a Fulbright scholarship and would be teaching for a semester at Charles University. They threw themselves into the life of the Chaplaincy and made many friends amongst members of the congregation. But, on the Sunday after Christmas, we had to bid them farewell as they returned to their home in Georgia, USA.
However, in the last couple of weeks I have lost one congregational member and am likely to lose another, neither of whom wants to leave but who are both being made to leave the country by the Czech Foreign Police. This is a wholly new situation, both for me and for the congregation.
The two people concerned, Karen and Anna, are both Americans and came to Prague in early November 2008 to undertake an intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) training course with the Caledonian School here in Prague. The school, like many others in Prague, offers TEFL courses to native graduate English speakers and guarantees a teaching job with the school, to all who successfully complete the course. It also promises to support all its newly qualified teachers with obtaining the necessary visa and work permit. The following is taken directly from their website.
“American, Canadian, Australian and European Union citizens do NOT need visas to enter the Czech Republic. American, Canadian and Australian citizens need a valid passport. The Caledonian School has a full-time visa assistant to help you through the process of applying for a work permit and visa (residency permit). Our visa assistant, Vera Antsiouova, will inform you about the process of obtaining your work/residency visas after you arrive”.
Back on 21st January, Karen & Anna were taken to the Czech Embassy in Berlin by the Caledonian School, in order to submit their applications for visas and work permits from outside of the Czech Republic. This procedure in itself seems somewhat absurd but apparently had previously been perfectly acceptable to the Czech authorities. However, on Thursday 2nd April, Karen was summoned the offices of the Foreign Police and Anna likewise a week later on Thursday 9th. They were both given what they believed at the time to be a four week extension to their tourist visas, to allow them to remain in the Czech Republic whilst they waited for their work and residency permits to come through the system. As they discovered a couple of weeks later, they had in fact been given deportation orders telling them to leave the country in four weeks or else face being banned from entering any of the countries covered by the Schengen agreement for five years.
As a result of all of this, Karen was forced to fly back to the USA last Friday and I fear that Anna, despite the last-minute personal efforts she is currently making, will also find herself in the same situation this coming Friday. Karen relates her experience of failing to get a visa as a TEFL teacher in Prague in this blog post. which also includes a link to an editorial in the English language weekly newspaper, ‘The Prague Post’ .
I admire Karen for not blaming anybody for what has happened to her, not even mentioning her language school by name in her blog. But I am forced to reflect on why this situation has come about even though I have been left feeling powerless to do anything to help these two ladies other than offering a listening ear. Having assessed the information available to me, I have come to the conclusion that no one person or organisation is totally to blame.
Certainly the Caledonian School does not come out this scenario in a very good light. Rather than getting Karen & Anna to apply for their visas as soon as their TEFL course finished in early December 2008, the school waited seven weeks before doing anything, using the excuse of Christmas and their visa assistant being on annual leave. Even worse was their failure to explain that what the Foreign Police gave them following their respective visits on Thursday 2nd & Thursday 9th April, was not a four week visa extension but rather a deportation order. Karen only found out the truth two weeks after receiving it when she showed hers to a Czech speaking friend.
I do also feel that both Karen & Anna were probably a little too trusting of the promises given to them by Caledonian. Apparently, a fellow student of theirs was far less trusting and kicked up a fuss several weeks earlier. As a result, her visa came through in time.
However, the Czech authorities also have to a lot of questions to answer too. As I understand it, they decided at the beginning of this year, to apply the immigration rules in a totally different way than they had previously, I suspect in part, to teach the various language schools a lesson for flouting the system as they had in the past. Karen & Anna and numerous other TEFL teachers thus became innocent victims caught in the middle of this power struggle.
The Czech Foreign Police also seem to be reacting to government pressure in the current economic downturn, to help ensure that available jobs only go to Czech people. They are therefore now taking the full 180 days they are technically allowed to use to consider work visa applications from non-EU citizens, rather than the previous 30-45 days that they used to take. This might make sense in relation to Ukrainian building workers but not to TEFL teachers. Language Schools and the firms who use them want TEFL teachers who are native first language English speakers. Karen & Anna are clearly not taking jobs from native Czechs! Rather, they are helping to provide an important service to Czech businesses and Czech business people.
There also remains a complete lack of clarity and consistency from the Foreign Police. Depending on who one talks to, answers and explanations differ. One is left with the ongoing suspicion of corruption within the system. How is it that many wealthy Russians (non-EU citizens) are allowed to reside here? Does money talk? Sadly, I think it does.
It is my fervent hope & prayer that this situation will eventually be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. That both Karen & Anna’s dream of working as TEFL teachers in Prague, living in & learning about a different culture than their own, will be able to happen. And that I won’t permanently lose two lively and intelligent members of my congregation.