If you are a person's employer, you absolutely must ensure that your employees have work authorization or you might be in serious trouble.
But I have no idea why a coworking space would need to know your visa status, any more than your morning coffee bar would need to ensure your presence was legal before serving you a latte. Depending on local laws it may be illegal for you to condition entry to the space on work status. On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 06:48 Kimberly Kubalek <ereerererwate...@gmail.com> wrote: > This message is relevant to everyone, but particularly the spaces, like > mine, run by expats in foreign countries. > > I have been a huge supporter of Coworking since I met Tony Bacigalupo a > few months after he first opened his space in NYC so many years ago. I knew > after seeing that space that I wanted to open a space as well. It took me > many years, I did it. I live in San Miguel de Allende Mexico and I opened > my space 3 years ago. > > Because my Spanish is poor, and because I knew community growth was key, I > targeted membership to expats and English speaking visitors. Which is not > say we limited it this way, only that the community I developed all seemed > to speak English, so those were the members we attracted. We were > successful - being the #1 rated city in the world by Travel + Leisure > helped and lots of interesting folks popped in to work and often folks > moved here permanently (with or without legal permission, many people come > in on a tourist visa and stay for years). > > I am working on a plan for a much larger, more sophisticated space and I > have concerns about expats and visitors who have no legal authorization to > be "working" while in Mexico. Our laws are quite clear, you may not work in > Mexico, online, in your home, etc., without authorization or without a > permanent resident visa. I think all international coworking spaces are > going to have to face this one. Do you ask your members if they have > permission to work in your country? Do you feel you can protect your > members when government officials come in and ask to see your members > documents? Are you concerned about liability? > > I think this a valid concern and I'd like to hear from other space owners. I > do not want to be a hunting ground for officials looking for people > breaking the law - and who would want to work in a coworking space where > they knew the government was going to come around and ask to see visas?! What > do you do to make sure the people working in your space have the right to > work there? Does it matter to you at all? Do you think it should matter? > > I was just in Austin for 3 months and coworked all over, no one ever > asked. Not one coworking space ever asked if I had permission to work in > the USA while I was there. If someone works out of your space and is not > legally entiled to be working in your country, is that an issue you think > about? Does this issue concern you? > > Thanks in advance for your feedback, > > > Kimberly > > > > Kimberly Kubalek, Owner > > Espacio Coworking - San Miguel de Allende > > +52 415 150 1069 MEX Office > > +52 415 167 4566 MEX Cell > +1 858 367 0102 USA Voicemail > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coworking/b50c95ee-4fc8-46c9-b411-2e46777ff65b%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coworking/b50c95ee-4fc8-46c9-b411-2e46777ff65b%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Cheers, David E. Weekly (@dweekly) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/coworking/CAD0F4Nh2TCf57J%3Dhu8du%3Dq7NTwCUac7sjrzRfob6-4GxkRsVFw%40mail.gmail.com.
