@Ragwort
My DS still in Nottingham after finishing exams (only one??), having a great time with his mates and picked to play for the First Team (cricket) so was over the moon
. Still no news on Camp America, looking less and less likely so probably back home soon and his local pub job ... which is a great holiday job, tourist pub on the river, lots of young people work there and very well run..... and still looking for a placement year job but may end up trying two or three shorter internships if he can find them. Main thing is that he is remaining positive and cheerful which we are very grateful for as we know so many students are struggling.
We've been anxiously watching the situation with J1 visas from the opposite perspective - we desperately need foreign students coming into the US to do the jobs they do every year. We have all sorts of services and entertainment businesses unable to fully reopen because of a lack of staff.
Here's a story in our local paper about it...
www.pressherald.com/2021/06/13/maine-summer-tourism-relies-on-foreign-student-labor-but-not-this-year/
Maine’s summer camps rely heavily on international staff. About one-third of camp workers come on visas, said Ron Hall, executive director of the trade group Maine Summer Camps.
“It is not because Maine camps aren’t looking for Maine workers – there just aren’t enough,” Hall said.
To work around embassy restrictions, some camps have even paid to fly students to Mexico to quarantine for two weeks in a hotel and get a visa at the U.S. consulate in that country before traveling to America, Hall added.
The loss of the program this year is a triple blow – to employers that rely on those students, students missing a valued experience, and to the U.S., by failing connect with up-and-coming citizens across the world, said Phil Simon, vice president of professional exchange programs at CIEE, a nonprofit international education company in Portland that administers J-1 visits.
“No other government in the world does this program at this scale – it has been hugely valuable for the U.S.,” Simon said. “You are reaching a group of university-educated people – they are going to be parents, teachers, architects, lawyers and politicians. You are building this network of friends in other countries at scale.”
It typically takes at least five months to arrange a J-1 visa, he said. The number of students making it to the U.S. this year will be at most 10 percent of those that came in 2019.
“The businesses in the U.S. and Maine that do such a good job at welcoming these visitors also rely on them for staffing,” he said. “This avenue is just not going to be open to them, which is going to create issues.”