Immigration rules relevant to crew haven’t changed since President Trump retook the White House. But stricter enforcement can give new urgency to old gray areas.
As a freelance chef, Wayne Dobson had been in and out of Fort Lauderdale for years. The South African native never walked the docks seeking work, but when an agent called him for a job when he was in the US, he would join the yacht there. Then four years ago, Wayne was on his way from St Barths to Fort Lauderdale to spend the holidays with friends when he was detained in transit by the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).
“On the day before Christmas, I was handcuffed and paraded through San Juan’s airport in Puerto Rico,” he says. “They questioned me for 11 hours, then put me in a holding cell until the next morning, when not one but three armed officers paraded me in front of thousands of holiday-goers.”
Wayne had to voluntarily give up his visa and immediately pay for a flight to Johannesburg, which transferred through Philadelphia and Doha. “In Philadelphia, before anyone could stand up to get their hand luggage, again three CBP officers put me in handcuffs in front of everyone on the plane and escorted me to the Qatar Airways flight to Doha. My passport was only given back to me in Doha.”
Wayne’s crime was nothing unusual in the yachting world though. It is something many non-US crew have done, whether out of ignorance of or disregard for the law: accepting work while in the US. Yacht crew generally travel to the US with the B-1/B-2 visa, a non-immigrant visitor’s visa that allows a person to enter the country temporarily for business (B-1) or for pleasure (B-2), or both; it does not allow the holder to obtain and engage in employment while in the US.
While the rules governing what a visitor can do with a B-1 visa have not changed over the decades, they do offer plenty of gray areas. The political climate can also affect their enforcement, and right now it’s not friendly to immigrants. President Trump ran a campaign promising the largest deportation program in history, and he has followed up with a hardcore stance against immigration that has made daily headlines since he took office for his second term in January.
Dockwalk attempted to learn exactly which activities are permissible for yacht crew with a B-1 visa. Can they attend boat shows and speak with captains? Can they register and interview at local crew agencies? Can they accept work if literally standing on board a foreign-flagged vessel (which is technically the soil of whichever flag it flies)? We reached out to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Its Office of Public Affairs responded: “The US Department of State handles B-1 visas. Recommend you reach out to them.” Nine days after submitting the media inquiry to the Department of State, the response came: “For guidance on what activities an alien may engage in after being admitted to the United States, we defer you to the Department of Homeland Security.” Further inquiries to media contacts at DHS, and its components, CBP and USCIS, went unanswered.
The climate of uncertainty has an effect. According to long-time Fort Lauderdale-based crew placement agent Linda Turner, owner of Crewfinders, the pool of crew in South Florida used to be a 50/50 mix of American and crew from other countries, proportionate to the number of foreign-flagged and US-flagged yachts. She estimates that ratio changed to 70 percent US/30 percent non-US during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2020.
“During that period of time, I got to the point where foreign crew would contact us for work on boats and say, ‘As long as the boat is out of the country, I will join it. But if I have to come into the US to do it, I will not,’” says Linda, who has worked as an agent since the 1990s.
And now that Trump is back in power? “There haven’t been changes to the law. But there have been new policies leading to stricter enforcement or stricter scrutiny of compliance with the existing laws,” says Oleg Otten of Miami-based VLAC Law, who’s known as The Yacht Visa Lawyer.
It’s Black and White… and Gray
Matters are further complicated by how up for interpretation the rules can be.
“I think CBP has a very difficult job, and they do a very good job 99 percent of the time, but I think that the individual officer you get still has a huge part to play in whether you have a very good, easy, smooth experience, or if you have a very frustrating, difficult experience,” says Scott Hershenson, managing partner of Hershenson Immigration Law Firm in South Florida. “If you get an officer who’s in a bad mood or doesn’t necessarily have the right training, it can make for a very uncomfortable situation.”
At this year’s Palm Beach International Boat Show, the Marine Industries Association of South Florida hosted a Q&A session with CBP officers, who gave out wrong information about whether foreign crew could continue working on board when their boat is on the hard. Weeks later, after this misinformation was shared across social-media platforms, it was clarified that yes, crew could continue their normal duties on board during refits.
Jo Assael of International Registries said what many were thinking when he posted on LinkedIn about the clarification: “I am conflicted by this as the outcome is clearly good news; however, if we cannot trust what those in authority tell us at forums designed to engage and educate the industry, and these misinformed agents are the ones enforcing the regulations, I remain deeply concerned.”
Clear B-1 answers remain elusive. “With a B-1 visa you can attend boat shows and meet with people in the industry to discuss prospective job opportunities, but not engage in any gainful US employment,” Oleg says. So if a person accepts work for a foreign employer while physically on board a yacht in US waters, would that be in compliance? Oleg calls this a gray area.
“The important thing for B-1 crew is that employment cannot be on US soil, with a narrow exception for doing routine work on the boat while it’s in dry dock. To be safe, B-1 crew employment should start abroad,” he says. “It’s a very fine line. Even the CBP officers at the Palm Beach boat show were saying that different officers may view it differently. Some would say, ‘We don’t see any problem with this,’ and some others may say, ‘I don’t think it’s correct.’”
Playing by the Rules
After his ordeal, chef Wayne wouldn’t risk that. Following a legal appeal that took two and a half years he was issued a new B-1/B-2 visa, which he travels with now. “I don’t take any chances, and I follow the law to the letter,” he says. Between jobs, he spends time in close-by, inexpensive countries like the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Panama, from where he can legally accept work and fly into the US with the boat’s papers.
He also makes sure he’s accurate about his timeline with border agents. “Every time you enter, they ask you what’s your intended time of stay, and, trust me, when they’re typing away, they’re actually putting your answer into the system,” he says. “They showed me my entire answer history from 2000 when I did my first cruise ship job as a waiter. They used it against me and had proof that many times when I said I’m staying for five weeks I actually stayed for four months. Now, I work out my visits in detail and make sure I keep to my dates given, plus or minus a day or two.”
Being well prepared, starting with the consulate interview, is more important than ever. “Getting a visa these days is certainly a little more difficult than it used to be,” Scott Hershenson says. “The biggest issue is being able to show that the individual applicant, the potential crew, has a life outside the United States. We always try to recommend that the applicant be able to produce as much documentation as possible to show their life is in their home country and that they do have plans to return when their time as crew is over.”
Crew also need to know how to respond to basic questions, he advises. “For example, often the consulate will ask, ‘Where do you live?’ And if a crew member who shares an apartment off the 17th Street Causeway says that they have a place in Fort Lauderdale, that is almost always going to be a reason for rejection.”
Oleg points out that crew often have previous visa applications, which a consulate officer will have access to. “If there is some discrepancy, the officer may ask about it and, depending on the answer, may think that the person is not being truthful. So it’s important to be consistent; if there is some change or if there was some mistake before, be ready to explain it if asked. But also not to volunteer unnecessary information if not asked.”
Once the visa is in hand, the next step is passing through border control. Admittance is decided on a case-by-case basis by CBP agents. One potential issue is a crew member not knowing who their legal employer is. “Many boat owners use third-party crew agencies that serve as foreign employers and process payroll outside of the US,” Oleg says. He recommends having a short letter from the employer outlining the points clearly so the crew can explain it to the officer, or at the least, hand over the letter.
CBP searching phones at the border has been in the news lately, although the agency has always had the legal authority to do this. One caveat: “They are not allowed to look at what’s in the cloud; they can only look at what’s on the physical phone itself. They’re supposed to put the phone in Airplane Mode,” Oleg says. “If a person doesn’t cooperate, the CBP officer can simply deny entry.”
Once on a yacht, crew need to be careful their job isn’t viewed as “domestic employment.” For instance, since 2019 foreign crew are permitted to work on US-flagged vessels, but the yacht can’t be based in the US, nor can crew be paid by a US company. “It could be viewed as a violation to work on a boat that spends more than half the year here,” Oleg says.
Finally, Scott says, in a new interpretation of the law, the CBP is not looking kindly upon crew who join a vessel that’s in the US and leave before the vessel departs. “We are now advising all of our clients to make sure that you either come to the US with the vessel, or make sure you depart with the vessel, so that some CBP officer down the road does not think that you are engaged in domestic employment.”
Although the current political climate may be giving the message “we don’t want you here,” Linda of Crewfinders has seen that owners and captains like hiring foreign crew if they can do so legally.
“Their attitude is still that as long as the crew member is qualified. They are looking for people that fit their requirements: the ability to think on your feet and willingness to please, and the skill set and diplomacy to handle guests and make the yacht experience fun and stress free, which is why they buy the boats.”