E.U.'s expanding borderless zone spells trouble for U.S. expats

[Harold F. Schiffman]

from the December 21, 2007 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1221/p04s01-woeu.html

E.U.'s expanding borderless zone spells trouble for U.S. expats

As nine Eastern and Central European countries join Schengen today, they
are under pressure to toughen long-abused visa policies.

By Jeffrey White | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Prague, Czech Republic

Seven years ago, Robert Hanawalt ditched a sales career in Washington to
move to Prague, where he quickly realized that he could live indefinitely
without official paperwork. He taught English illegally for four years on
90-day tourist visas. The trick? Quick trips over the border, which reset
the clock with a fresh passport stamp. "I did that," Mr. Hanawalt says.
"But after the first few times I thought, 'Why even bother? Nobody is
checking these things.' "

But as nine countries, including the Czech Republic, join the European
Union's borderless Schengen zone Friday, Brussels is now ordering member
states to get tough on visa policy. That could spell trouble for an
unlikely class of illegal immigrants:  American expats. Attracted by
English teaching jobs, the low cost of living, and societies just waking
up to the possibilities of Western tourism, thousands are estimated to be
living and working illegally in central and eastern Europe. Prague quickly
became an expatriate magnet. Today, 5,000 Americans are registered with
the US Embassy here, though there's no official tally of the total number
of Americans living in the Czech Republic. Local media estimate it to be
nearly 20,000.

Brussels is taking aim at such visa riders. Now, Americans and Canadians
can initially travel visa-free to Schengen countries for up to 90 days.
But if at the end of that time they want to stay, they must go somewhere
outside the zone Ukraine or Montenegro, for example to apply for a
long-term visa. Many expats are wondering what to do now, having set down
roots here. "There is definitely some panic about Schengen," says Evan
Rail, a travel writer who has lived in Prague for eight years, but has
been "riding a tourist visa" for the last two.

Hanawalt has gotten a valid residency permit and runs a business helping
other Americans in Prague negotiate the country's immigration bureaucracy
and get legal themselves. Mark Wright, who has been teaching English
illegally in Prague for two years, found another teaching job at a
language school that says it will help him obtain a visa. Other Americans
are applying for Czech business licenses, another avenue to obtaining a
residency visa. But some are taking their chances. "Unfortunately one
can't go up to a government official and ask exactly how much harder it
will be to live here illegally in the new year," says Mr. Wright. "It's
possible enforcement might not change at all, and I know some expats who
are banking on it."

The Czech interior ministry is promising increased enforcement. Spokesman
Vladimir Repka wrote in an e-mail this week that in 2007 more than 4,000
people were deported for visa violations, though he did not know how many
were Americans. Schengen's expansion is affecting others as well.
Ukrainians, long accustomed to unfettered travel to Poland, now need a
visa even for day trips. Slovenia is closing down unmanned footbridges
along its border with Croatia. Not every American in Prague is greeting
Schengen coldly. "As someone living here legally, I think it's only fair
that some of the permanent tourists here be made to do the same thing,"
says Mark Anderson, who moved here six years ago and started his own
cleaning business.

What is the Schengen zone?

Named after a 1985 treaty in Schengen, Luxembourg, the zone of 15 Western
European countries allows passport-free travel. On Friday, it expands
eastward to include nine new countries:

Czech Republic

Slovakia

Hungary

Latvia

Lithuania

Estonia

Poland

Slovenia

Malta

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