In December 2005, I submitted the article Personal NAFTA Hardships; to VivelaCanada, and in August 2007 I followed up with a submission Personal NAFTA Hardships 2 In December 2007, I discovered that my original hiring by the State of X Agency in 2001/2002 and their application for my six TN Visas had all been "fraudulent". I confronted my "employer" in early January 2008, formally rejecting their "Letter of Support" for my 7th TN Visa. This meant that on the expiry of my 6th TN Visa, I needed to vacate (read: quit) my position. Not wanting to be part of fraud, I did that and returned to Canada. Before leaving, I submitted an invoice to the State Agency for net "unpaid wages" in the amount of around $ 80,000. I also asked the Agency's watchdog for fraud to investigate the issue. To my best knowledge, the information is currently being reviewed.
On 2008-05-09, I submitted the following information to Wikipedia as a NAFTA Chapter 16 concern, and it was shown as a point 5.8:
"Chapter 16A concern has been raised in Arizona where a Canadian professional was hired by a State Agency in early 2002, and the State Agency applied for the individual's TN Visa. It is alleged that the State Agency acted in ignorance, or alternatively that it acted fraudulently and in the assumption that it is a Member of a Party (USA) that is eligible and included in the definition of an "enterprise", "US entity" or "governmentally-owned entity". See the definition of "enterprise" in Article 201.
The TN beneficiary, a Member of a Party (Canada) claims that the State Agency is and was ineligible to benefit from the provisions of Chapter 16 of the NAFTA because it is a "government agency", and that the NAFTA is not an immigration treaty nor an employment treaty, but a trade treaty reserved for the private sector. The TN beneficiary was also coerced in February 2006 not to mention his concerns about various hiring irregularities.
Realizing the alleged fraud in December 2007, the TN beneficiary rejected the State Agency's application to US Customs and Border Patrol for a seventh one-year period, and returned to Canada. The same State Agency also hired other Canadian TN beneficiaries, most of whom since applied for H1-B Visa when their first TN Visa expired. It is not known how many other State Agencies within the US also do this. It appears that there is no formal conflict resolution mechanism in place for this type of controversy.
If indeed fraudulently hired and visaed, the former TN beneficiary alleges that he worked in Arizona for six years as a Canadian business person, and should have been remunerated according to the currency exchange rate between the US$ and the Can$. A net amount of $ 80,000 of unpaid wages over the six years is at stake."
A day later, on 2008-05-10, this submission had been edited out.... Why?
