Doing an internship as a foreigner in Colombia
Colombia has become an attractive country for young people seeking an internship of short duration. There are several companies as well as international and non-governmental organizations where foreigners can do an internship. Nevertheless, Colombia is not famous for its high rates of immigration, which may be caused by a lack of knowledge about the requirements, costs and estimated completion time of paperwork for persons seeking internships in Colombia.
The visa that a prospective intern would need to obtain depends on whether or not s/he will receive remuneration for his/her work. If there is no remuneration, s/he would need to request a Temporary Special Visa (or Visa Temporal Especial in Spanish). This kind of visa applies only for interns working either for a non-profit organization or NGO.
A Temporary Special Visa should be requested from Colombian consulates abroad or once the person is already in Colombia under a valid visa. Hence, a Temporary Special Visa is applicable for volunteers that will work in Colombia for a non-profit organization or a NGO without remuneration.
On the other hand, if the prospective intern will sign a contract and earn a salary, s/he will need to apply for a Temporary Work Visa (or Visa Temporal Trabajador in Spanish). As is the case with the Temporary Special Visa, the person applying for Temporary Work Visa can request it from the Colombian Consulate abroad or once in the country under a legal visa.
However, unlike the Temporary Special Visa, the Temporary Work Visa is not limited to people working with non-profit organizations or NGO’s. Rather, the visa applies to persons doing an internship with any kind of company or organization as long as there is a contract and remuneration.
The Temporary Work Visa and Temporary Special Visa are given for no more than two years and will become invalid if the person leaves the country for more than 180 days.
In order to obtain the Temporary Work Visa, the petitioner is required to submit a form that can be downloaded from the internet. In addition, s/he is required to submit a copy of the main page of his/her passport, the employment contract, a certification of the legal existence of the company or organization with whom s/he will do the internship and the papers supporting his/her qualifications to perform as an intern.
The submission requirements for the Temporary Special Visa are the same requirements as those for the Temporary Work Visa, except that for the Temporary Special Visa the petitioner need not submit an employment contract. Instead, the Colombian government requires the intern to submit financial support documents.
Thus, Colombia has relatively easy regulations for professionals who want to carry out an internship with a company, organization, NGO or non-profit organization in Colombia. It is strongly recommended to contact the closest Colombian consulate abroad as soon as possible when you are planning to do the internship, so that you won’t be surprised in case the process takes a little bit longer that you expected.
H1B Work Visa in USA: The H1B Visa is a Sponsored Visa that Requires Great Involvement of the Employer.
The H1B visa is used by companies to bring foreign professionals to the United States. This kind of work visa is highly popular because it can lead to a request for permanent legal residency. As a nonimmigrant H1B, the employee will be admitted for an initial period of three years. The H1B visa can be extended, but typically not beyond six years.
The employer must remain as the visa sponsor and sign each application of extension of the H1B visa. The employee can switch employments, but he will need to file an application with the USCIS with his new employer as his sponsor. The employer also needs to be involved in the H1B visa process after the initial filing. For example, the employer must sponsor the employee when the employee is applying for a green card.
When filing an H1B application, the employer must demonstrate that the position requires a professional in a special occupation and that the employee has the required qualifications. Not all the professions are eligible for a H1B visa application and what qualifies as a specialty occupation is determined by the USCIS.
To obtain a H1B visa for an employee, the employer must also demonstrate legal existence and possession of sufficient funds to pay the employee. Furthermore, the employer must provide all supporting documentation and explain how the applicant’s capacities and education fit the job offer provided to him. Thus, the employer must provide a letter that satisfies USCIS requirements.
An annual numerical limit or CAP of 65.00 visas per fiscal year is established by the USCIS. The rational provided by the USCIS for the CAP is to promote equal opportunity to national and foreign workers by avoiding an imbalance in the jobs provided to nationals and to foreigners. There are some applications exempt from the CAP limitation, including the first 20,000 applications filed on behalf of beneficiaries with a U.S. master’s degree or higher, applications for employment at an institution of higher education or its affiliated or related nonprofit entities or a nonprofit research organization, or applications for employment at a government research organization. Thus, an employer must file a H1B application in a timely manner.
The Department of Labor is also involved in the H1B Visa application. For example, the employer must file a Labor Condition application with the Department of Labor. Filing this application with the Department of Labor ensures that the wage offered to the applicant is as high as the one paid for other employers for the same type of job in the same geographical area and that it will not adversely affect other workers similarly employed.
If you are looking to work in the US, you can apply to a company willing to request you through the H1B visa process. However, applying for an H1B visa requires great involvement of the employer. Try to gather all the required documents ahead of time so the process will be easer and fast for you and the employer.
Ana Barrera
How is it to be a Prisoner in a Foreign Country?
Understand, express yourself and interact in a place where you don’t speak the same language is hard, and a lot of times frustrating. Probably most of you have experienced this at least once in your life.
Non-English-speaking prisoners in the US live a similar situation but within a system full of technicalities. I will give my own perception from an internship I did on the summer 2010 in the jails’ system in San Francisco.
Spanish speaking prisoners who don’t know English face several challenges in jails. It is difficult and almost impossible for them to deal with personal issues; access the services offered by the staff; understand their criminal charges and the criminal procedure they are going through. Consequently, it isn’t easy for them to defend their rights within the correctional system.
For instance, if a woman doesn´t know what to do with her kids while she is incarcerated she finds a higher barrier if she doesn’t know English. As this example, there are much more matters like property, childcare, child support, rent and labor issues among others that prisoners who don’t speak the language are not able to deal with due to that limitation.
In San Francisco, there are services for prisoners to help them to access justice (i.e. Law Libraries). Nevertheless, non-English-speaking prisoners either don’t know or don’t understand about them. They don’t even think on going to the library because they guess there are not materials available in a language they understand. Thus, they find themselves in a harder situation due to their lack of knowledge of English.
Sometimes they are sanctioned by the staff without even know the reason or understand the means they have to challenge those sanctions. Again, the reason of their disadvantage is their language limitations.
Sometimes English speaking inmates don’t understand their charges and cases. However, the barrier is higher when the prisoner cannot communicate with his attorney unless there is an interpreter; when he doesn’t understand the proceeding because hearings happen so fast and they depend on an interpreter; and, they are not able to read about their charges and possible defenses because there are no materials in a language they understand.
We can justify this disadvantaged situation by saying that these prisoners are the ones that have to learn the language to equally access the services offered by the system. At the end they knew they were in a country where a different language was spoken. Besides being a rude perception, there is no justification to punish them with an unequal access to services and consequently to justice.
It is true that not only prisoners who don’t speak English face a lot of challenges in the criminal system of the US, but having a language limitation increases this disadvantage. The remained question is: what does the system require to equally offer and guarantee access to justice to prisoners regardless their race, nationality or language proficiency?
Maria Juliana Escobar
Work Visa in Colombia and United States
United States is well known for attracting immigrants. For example, 117,409 H1B work visas were issued in 2010.
Requesting a H1B visa is a long and difficult process in the U.S. Not only is there a limitation on the careers available to successfully apply, but there is also an annual cap on the number of visas issued. The U.S. wants the best of the best. In 2010, 30.528 visa applications were rejected out of the 147,937 applications filed. Visas are not awarded proportionally to the applicants of each country. For an instance, from the 117,409 H1B visas issued in 2010, 58,664 were from India, 11,242 were from China, and 1,114 were from Colombia. One possible explanation for the difference is that Indians are well known to be awarded H1B visas for engineering jobs, which are easier to obtain H1B visas for.
Colombian applicants received 1.8% of the total of H1B visas Issued in 2010. The low rate of Colombians that obtain a H1B visa in USA may be for different reasons. One explanation is that Colombians are unfamiliar with the procedure and requirements to apply for this visa.
Workers and companies unfamiliar with the procedures of obtaining H1B visas often believe that the process is too difficult. Thus, the recepients of these visas are often students that find a job in the U.S. after their studies and who have been educated in the H1B visa process while being in the U.S.
United States provides broad information about the H1B visa online, and you can easily find this information at the USCIS web page or at the Department of State web page. Unfortunately Colombians are not culturally used to look online for information. Rather, it is common for Colombians to search for agents that will give them information and take them step-by-step through the procedure on filing a visa. Although hiring an agent or attorney with experience in filing this kind of visa can be significant in the process, nevertheless it is important to have information on the procedure before walking into an attorney’s office. For example, it can be economical to focus your time with the attorney on the specific facts of your case, rather than paying the attorney to answer general questions you could obtain for free online.
Foreigners often find that it is difficult to find information about obtaining a work visa to work in Colombia.
There is not a clear and consumer friendly webpage that gives such information. Rather, the governmental webpages provide links to actual decrees or law related to the information you are looking for. There is multiple agents and attorneys that offer services to help you obtain a work visa in Colombia. However, it is important to have information on the procedure before walking into an attorney’s office.
In Colombia and United States, it is not mandatory to contact an attorney to file a visa application but I highly recommend it as it is an important step of your life.
Ana Barrera
Project Management Principles and Technology for Law Firms
Law firms have used project management for decades in operations and information technology but hiring project managers focused on legal processes is a new trend that has allowed law firms to have a strong global workforce of lawyers unprotect management techniques.
Even small law firms or sole ownership law firms have an increased need for project management usage. Having structured project practices in place will allow law firms to adopt better practices that will lead to efficient management of time and resources.
We can now find project management software available for law firms as more associations have been founded in need to encourage its practices. For small law firms that don't have a large IT budget, Legal project management (LPM) planning can be done on a hadn't-drafted checklist, flow charts or excel templates; the goal is to impose order and manageable phases, tasks and budgets.
One of the project management principles is the existence of scheduled and established time goals for a project. An integrated plan requires a schedule of all the tasks reflecting how long each will take and the interrelationship they will have with one another. For example, a legal project manager that considers the client-facing view of the processes will identify what the client sees for any given process and ensure to sign specific steps for the team to successfully complete the process on time.
the usage of project management principles and technology in law firms will allow lawyers to ensure that they employ efficient processes on cases and use the most appropriate staff for tasks.Some law firms are going a step further and are hiring legal project managers that are creating standardized processes for the law firm. Having a designated project manager helps with consistency, clarity and accountability.
For example, a legal project management will help estimate a case budget by evaluating the total project costs as well as cost breakdown for each activity. as a case progresses, the project manager had assessed the costs related to such type of cases versus the estimated costs and helped identified deviations that can be acted upon quickly.
A legal project manager will help improve the lawyer-client relationship. In order to create a more consistent, efficient experience for a client, a project manager will create standardized processes and systems for lawyers to manage matters and projects. A more consistent process and predictability in processes will show clients that their expectation regarding costs and experience can be met.
There are many benefits related to the implementation of project management principles and technology to law firms as they are in hiring a legal project manager. either way, lawyers will not have to develop a new planetary time they take on a new matter and will be able to anticipate potential risks and increment client satisfaction by implementing a more transparent legal experience.
Ana Barrera
