CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — U.S. Forces Korea officials are denying status of forces agreement visa renewals to many civilian contractors who lived in South Korea under a different visa when they were hired.

Most contractors who lived in South Korea for more than a year under a different visa — even if that was 15 years ago — are considered "ordinarily resident" in South Korea and are ineligible for SOFA status, according to USFK regulations.

The sudden scrutiny comes on the heels of an audit of USFK’s procedures and its compliance with the regulation guiding the invited contractor program.

"An ongoing Army Audit Agency audit has revealed that USFK Regulation 700-19 was not properly enforced by [USFK Chief of Staff, Acquisition Management]," USFK wrote via e-mail following a Stars and Stripes query.

As a result, some invited contractors who have worked with USFK for decades and have top secret clearances are losing their SOFA visas — and in some cases, the jobs that require that status.

USFK said it has reviewed more than 1,000 files since June and revoked SOFA status from 12 contractors. But contractors who spoke to Stripes said there are many among USFK’s 2,200 contractors who are concerned about further reviews.

Some say they will give up their jobs, pull their children out of school and move to the United States at considerable personal cost until they can re-establish stateside residency and regain their SOFA status.

Other contractors say they can’t even do that because Contracting Command Korea is telling them they’ll deny SOFA requests if they re-apply for the same position.

Without SOFA status, contractors cannot use base grocery stores and post exchanges; they do not have access to military banking; they must pay South Korean taxes; and their families can lose access to nearly all base services, from hospitals and day care to schooling.

The regulation states that living in South Korea under a non-SOFA status for more than one year makes a person ordinarily resident in South Korea.

However, the 63-page regulation defines establishment of U.S. residence more vaguely. It says that when hired, contractors must normally maintain a residence in the States, but doesn’t specify for how long.

Contractors cannot be "ordinarily" resident in both the United States and South Korea at the same time.

Stripes spoke with 11 contractors, nine of whom who asked to remain anonymous because their SOFA status is under scrutiny. Others declined to be interviewed, even under anonymity, because they said they feared retribution.

Low on options

Some contractors agreed that they had once been in South Korea under a different visa for more than a year and that under the regulation, they were ordinarily resident in South Korea.

However, each of them say they were truthful about their employment histories; their applications for SOFA status were approved by USFK and the South Korean government when they were hired.

"If they’ve been screwing up for 20 years, to make everybody pay for what they did wrong is not right," said contractor Jaime Olivaras, who is not under review. He said he knows five people whose SOFA visas may be in jeopardy and has heard of several others in the same situation.

Olivaras and others say contractors should be grandfathered into SOFA status because they were initially approved as such.

Although USFK officials aren’t firing these contractors, some contractors say their jobs with their companies require SOFA status.

"Some shops are small. If they take out half of a critical area, that’s impacting operational readiness," Olivaras said.

With the U.S. economy in dismal shape, contractors who cannot do their job without SOFA say they aren’t sure what they will do next.

Others, including Korean-Americans and U.S. citizens with Korean spouses, say they will apply for a different visa and keep their jobs, but forfeit their SOFA privileges.

"If I had known I couldn’t qualify for SOFA, I would have taken another job," one contractor said. "But it’s too late to change direction now."

Another contractor says he may have to resign and move back to the United States just long enough to gain ordinary resident status there, though he will have to pull his children out of school, de-register his vehicles and spend thousands of dollars relocating.

He was told his SOFA status could be revoked after more than a decade because when he retired from the armed forces, he worked in South Korea slightly more than a year before finding an on-post job.

"There’s nothing in writing that says how long I have to go back to the U.S.," he said. "This doesn’t pass the common sense test. They are making all of this up on the fly."

The contractors, all of whom said they are U.S. citizens, say they’ve been told different things when they asked how long they would have to return to regain U.S. ordinary resident status.

Some are communicating through an e-mail address, ordinarilyresident@gmail.com, which a contractor set up to bring together others who are concerned about their jobs. One contractor says that between USFK jobs, he took a non-SOFA status contract job that was nevertheless overseen by Contract Command Korea. In his case, moving back to America for 45 days might be enough to regain residency.

One Osan Air Base contractor was told that even if he moves to the United States for 60 days, he might not get SOFA status back this year if he tried to regain his job.

He alerted his military sponsor, who asked 7th Air Force lawyers for a legal review of his case.

USFK officials said they were not aware of any legal investigations at Osan that would change their regulatory interpretation and Osan officials were unable to comment by deadline Monday.

When asked how long contractors must return to the States to be eligible for SOFA status, USFK replied that "the decision as to whether the contractor is ordinarily resident in the U.S. is based on all the facts and circumstances applicable when that contractor is hired."

Each contractor’s SOFA status will be evaluated upon their renewal date, USFK added.

Fed up

Keith Boeck came to South Korea with the Army in 1984 and remained on active duty until 1990, when he took a civilian job.

In 1999, he suffered serious injuries in a motorcycle accident and stopped working. He didn’t go back to work until 2003. Because he took more than a year off, Boeck became ordinarily resident in South Korea and was no longer eligible for SOFA status, according to the regulation.

His application for SOFA status was accepted in 2003 without exception. It was renewed multiple times until July.

Boeck says he was never notified by Acquisition Management or Contracting Command Korea that his status was revoked. He had to hear it from his boss.

When Boeck asked for a formal letter, his boss contacted Scott Bonner, a Contracting Command Korea worker.

Bonner responded that legal counsel told him to pass all correspondence through intermediaries and have no contact with Boeck or other employees losing their status, according to official correspondence.

Boeck might have retained his job; his wife is Korean. He also is eligible for South Korean residency status because his father was a member of Task Force Smith, the first U.S. unit to arrive during the Korean War.

But after nearly 25 years of USFK service, Boeck said the insult was too much to take.

"I regret having to resign but I am fed up with this military and their mentality," Boeck wrote in his resignation letter, which was provided to Stripes. "They made the mistake of granting me a visa for 6 years and rather than grandfather in those, like me, who have been working so long and hard, they just kick you to the curb."

Boeck is an expert on M1A1 tank maintenance and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. He and others have skills sets and a fondness for South Korea not commonly found, contractors say.

"How are they going to fill positions with people who have no source expertise, no top secret clearance and get people stateside to come over here to work on [short-term] contracts?" asked one contractor. "Nobody is going to do it, unless they are [on temporary duty assignment]. And how much is that going to cost the government?"