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Hi, new member here.
OIP*= Office of International Programs
I'm a grad student and research assistant at a state university. On my 2nd year I found an internship and started taking Field Study classes in order to be eligible to do internship outside the campus. Everything went well and I got CPT authorization and started my internship.
I have taken 4 Field Study classes consecutively and kept working as an intern outside the campus. By this time my work place have applied for an H1B visa and I got help about this from my international office. Also I have filed my taxes with support of my international office for 2015 and 2016. Through the end of my 3 years master program I got a job offer which I thought would be a nice opportunity to use my OPT. (I was planning to go on my PhD otherwise while keeping my part time internship)
When I visited my international office they realized that we only got authorization from my professor for the first semester not the following 3 semesters even though I took necessary classes and paid my taxes, doing everything else correctly. My International Office Advisor asked me to talk to my professor in order to get an authorization letter from him indicating that I am authorized to do the internship for the past 3 months. My professor instead gave me a letter indicating that he is authorization my internship beginning my master's degree until the end of my PhD studies. He indicated that this should work but if they require individual letters he can provide them as well.
After sending that letter to my International Office Advisor I got a call from them 2 days later, indicating that they have talked to a couple of colleagues in other universities about this and even though they understand this is a mistake on their part they said they are too afraid to put that paper into my folder under Trump's administration. They indicated that they would do that under Obama's administration but right now they are too afraid to do that. They said they have kids and they can't risk losing their job over this. They gave me my termination papers and said "sorry, I believe you'll have good opportunities in your country".
This was pretty unexpected for me since I got accepted at the same time to the PhD program at the university. My professor is shocked as well but he doesn't know what to do. He asked for the authorization letter back from OIP and they said there is no paper like that, it never existed.
I thought this was extremely unfair and sketchy I went ahead and talked to Dean of Student Life who is responsible of such matters. I have been told in that meeting even though this seems like OIP's mistake, I can't expect them to own this fault. Because if there is a fault there should be consequences. I asked them why do I need to face consequences of other's mistake I did not get a clear response.
I went ahead and talked to Provost of the university who is supervising OIP. They told me that they were going to talk to OIP and update me with what they got. After a day I got an email from Provost indicating that OIP told them that they were WARNING ME ABOUT THIS ISSUE FOR 2 YEARS STRAIGHT. This is a blatant lie and a lie that I can prove very easily with email through this 2 year period. Just to make sure that I went ahead and asked my professor about this to find out if he got any warnings from OIP in the past 2 years. He said he got nothing and even though I forgot to renew things OIP should be updating him with what's going on about my status. He said "it looks like they are trying to cover their (explicit)" Provost also indicated that if I keep pursuing this issue I'll lose all the support from the university and be sent to legal department to be dealt with.
After hearing that I have started looking for lawyers/attorneys to find out what can I do about this situation. I live in a small city, almost covered by the university itself therefore due to the conflict of financial interest none of the attorneys were able to take my case.
As a last resort I have decided to talk to the Senator. I got an appointment from their team and explained my situation. Team agreed that this is not my fault and this is not fair but as I'm not a US Citizen or Green Card holder Senator can not do anything in order to help me.
While I was looking for a solution almost 4 months passed. (1 months I was almost paralyzed, shocked and was in need for consultation so this whole process took about 3 months)
Now not being able to find any other solutions I went ahead and made my reinstatement but I can't sleep since the day I sent the reinstatement papers. A mixture of being scared of not getting reinstated and unfair treatment keeps me in a really bad mental situation. I can't go on any of my research because of thinking about this. I have even thought about creating banners and protesting this in the campus by myself as a last-last resort to be heard.
Everyone says this situation is really screwed up and I need to be heard. What should I do to get a little bit of a fair treatment out of this situation? Should I talk to mainstream media? Any organizations?
Thanks for reading and helping, immensely appreciated!
P.
OIP*= Office of International Programs
I'm a grad student and research assistant at a state university. On my 2nd year I found an internship and started taking Field Study classes in order to be eligible to do internship outside the campus. Everything went well and I got CPT authorization and started my internship.
I have taken 4 Field Study classes consecutively and kept working as an intern outside the campus. By this time my work place have applied for an H1B visa and I got help about this from my international office. Also I have filed my taxes with support of my international office for 2015 and 2016. Through the end of my 3 years master program I got a job offer which I thought would be a nice opportunity to use my OPT. (I was planning to go on my PhD otherwise while keeping my part time internship)
When I visited my international office they realized that we only got authorization from my professor for the first semester not the following 3 semesters even though I took necessary classes and paid my taxes, doing everything else correctly. My International Office Advisor asked me to talk to my professor in order to get an authorization letter from him indicating that I am authorized to do the internship for the past 3 months. My professor instead gave me a letter indicating that he is authorization my internship beginning my master's degree until the end of my PhD studies. He indicated that this should work but if they require individual letters he can provide them as well.
After sending that letter to my International Office Advisor I got a call from them 2 days later, indicating that they have talked to a couple of colleagues in other universities about this and even though they understand this is a mistake on their part they said they are too afraid to put that paper into my folder under Trump's administration. They indicated that they would do that under Obama's administration but right now they are too afraid to do that. They said they have kids and they can't risk losing their job over this. They gave me my termination papers and said "sorry, I believe you'll have good opportunities in your country".
This was pretty unexpected for me since I got accepted at the same time to the PhD program at the university. My professor is shocked as well but he doesn't know what to do. He asked for the authorization letter back from OIP and they said there is no paper like that, it never existed.
I thought this was extremely unfair and sketchy I went ahead and talked to Dean of Student Life who is responsible of such matters. I have been told in that meeting even though this seems like OIP's mistake, I can't expect them to own this fault. Because if there is a fault there should be consequences. I asked them why do I need to face consequences of other's mistake I did not get a clear response.
I went ahead and talked to Provost of the university who is supervising OIP. They told me that they were going to talk to OIP and update me with what they got. After a day I got an email from Provost indicating that OIP told them that they were WARNING ME ABOUT THIS ISSUE FOR 2 YEARS STRAIGHT. This is a blatant lie and a lie that I can prove very easily with email through this 2 year period. Just to make sure that I went ahead and asked my professor about this to find out if he got any warnings from OIP in the past 2 years. He said he got nothing and even though I forgot to renew things OIP should be updating him with what's going on about my status. He said "it looks like they are trying to cover their (explicit)" Provost also indicated that if I keep pursuing this issue I'll lose all the support from the university and be sent to legal department to be dealt with.
After hearing that I have started looking for lawyers/attorneys to find out what can I do about this situation. I live in a small city, almost covered by the university itself therefore due to the conflict of financial interest none of the attorneys were able to take my case.
As a last resort I have decided to talk to the Senator. I got an appointment from their team and explained my situation. Team agreed that this is not my fault and this is not fair but as I'm not a US Citizen or Green Card holder Senator can not do anything in order to help me.
While I was looking for a solution almost 4 months passed. (1 months I was almost paralyzed, shocked and was in need for consultation so this whole process took about 3 months)
Now not being able to find any other solutions I went ahead and made my reinstatement but I can't sleep since the day I sent the reinstatement papers. A mixture of being scared of not getting reinstated and unfair treatment keeps me in a really bad mental situation. I can't go on any of my research because of thinking about this. I have even thought about creating banners and protesting this in the campus by myself as a last-last resort to be heard.
Everyone says this situation is really screwed up and I need to be heard. What should I do to get a little bit of a fair treatment out of this situation? Should I talk to mainstream media? Any organizations?
Thanks for reading and helping, immensely appreciated!
P.
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