Charlie, AKA MoistCr1TiKaL, has announced that he and Moist Esports are suing US Immigration over the way Visas for his Apex Legends roster were handled.
MoistCr1TiKaL has been vocal in his disdain for the US Immigration office and his difficulties with getting his Moist Apex Legends roster into LA. With the ALGS Year 4 Split 1 Playoffs happening in-person, getting his team into the US was essential.
He was able to skirt difficulties with US Immigration during qualifiers by bringing his players into Canada to play online, but he was eventually unable to avoid their Visa into the US being denied. In order for the team to apply for another Visa, he had to drop the roster, which comes with a whole host of issues. As a result, MoistCr1TiKaL and Moist Esports as a whole are suing the US Immigration office.
“We, Moist Esports, are suing US Immigration. We talked with our lawyers, and they agreed that this is very mysterious how it ever even got to this point. It seems that there are quite a few no-nos that were committed here, and some protocol that wasn’t followed, a lot of big red flags, big problems,” Charlie claimed in his video on the topic.
Additionally, though he’s used a thinly veiled “Not Moist Esports” moniker for the team, they still aren’t technically represented by him. Moist Esports lose any cut of the winnings and aren’t allowed to work with the team as they’d like, resulting in financial losses.
Despite this, the team still has a ton of affection for him and Moist Esports and how they’ve helped the team despite taking financial losses to do so, as explained by Wxltzy in a post-game interview.
(Not) @Wxltzy from (Not) @MoistEsports has a few things to say about the team, keeping composure and how incredible his support system has been. 🥸#ALGS | @ItsEmtee_ | @Gildersons_ | @DraugrAU pic.twitter.com/ZCTeQHvDNB
— Apex Legends Esports (@PlayApexEsports) May 4, 2024
“Just big love, man. Cannot stress enough how accommodating he has been for us. Genuinely, everyone at Moist has been a rock for us. This was a very stressful situation, and they’ve done the absolute most for us. I can’t say thank you enough.”
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Despite the team itself doing well at the ALGS LAN, Moist Esports isn’t likely to see direct money from that success. This whole debacle has cost the organisation a lot, according to Charlie’s claims. Though, as he’d go on to explain, it isn’t possible to claim damages within the lawsuit against US Immigration.
“You know what I’ve learned through this lawsuit process? It turns out that there is corruption built into the US Constitution itself where, even if we’re successful in beating US Immigration in this lawsuit, they cannot pay us out any damages. In which there has been a lot,” MoistCr1TiKaL asserted.
“This has been a super expensive process, and there’s also so much lost income here because there’s so much money on the line for the tournament, as well as so many potential eyes on our organization, as well as all of the legal fees. There’s so much money that went into this, all of which was just burned thanks to US Immigration f***ing us.”
He went on to call out the way the entire office works, outright blaming the agent responsible for his players’ case for “mishandling” it and claiming he was, “stunned by how deep and rotten the system is. It is so f***ing broken. It is a joke.”
Despite all this and his players having to make multiple lengthy flights through this process – leaving them “unable to practice for weeks” according to Charlie’s account – the Moist Esports squad is cleaning up house at the ALGS LAN.
Though he doesn’t expect the lawsuit to do anything but overturn the initial ruling against his players, he’s going through it anyways, and has confirmed that the proceedings for this suit are already well underway.