“The Hidden Crisis: How Filipino Teachers on J-1 Visas Are Being Exploited in America's Classrooms”

Guest blogger: Sadie Stone, law student, University of San Francisco

In school districts across the United States, including the Bay Area of California, Filipino teachers arrive each year on the J-1 cultural exchange visas. Many are filling hard-to-fill special education positions in classrooms from elementary school through high school. Each year, educators from the Philippines, who hold advanced credentials, pay recruitment agencies fees ranging from $15,000 to $30,000 for placement and arrive believing they have secured jobs with benefits and salaries.^[1] Teachers arrive to the United States thousands of dollars in debt, without protections or oversight, on a visa initially intended to increase cultural education and exchange.^[2] 

The disconnect creates the setting for exploitation, occurring with the tacit approval of school districts and the government that choose to look the other way. The predatory nature of this system begins with recruitment agencies, where Filipino educators are filled with promises that sound like traditional overseas worker contracts (OFW).[3] The teachers then pay large fees, complete filing requirements to leave the country, and receive what they’re told are “job offers” with contracts guaranteeing benefits and specific salary ranges.

But J-1 visas are not technically “work” visas, and as such neither the Philippines nor the United States offers them protections that workers are typically given; even though they provide hundreds of thousands of laborers to the United States each year. J-1 visas don’t offer a pathway to permanent residency in the United States, and crucially, the workers, not the employers, bear the financial burden of getting here. According to the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, the J-1 Exchange Visitor Teacher Program has long been plagued by abuse.^[4] The fees charged by the agencies are just the beginning. One Filipino National in North Carolina was taken directly from the airport to the bank, where he was forced to open an account for his paychecks. This bank was linked to the agency that recruited him. That same agency then pressured him to take out a $2000 loan to lease a car from a dealership, which again had ties with the agency. Even after arrival the agency continues to exploit fees and money from the teachers.

Housing arrangements are often equally exploitative. After one night in the provided accommodation, the North Carolina teacher found himself homeless, with nowhere to live. Teachers in the Bay Area end up sleeping on students’ family couches when promised housing falls through. In other cases, multiple teachers are crammed into a single apartment, housing costs eating into their already modest salaries.

The problem extends beyond predatory agencies. School districts themselves are either unprepared or willfully ignorant about what hiring J-1 teachers means. The structural incentives make exploitation almost inevitable: unlike other temporary work visa programs, the J-1 teacher program lacks specific wage requirements beyond compliance with existing union contracts, meaning non-unionized districts can pay J-1 teachers substantially less than their American counterparts.^[5] Schools face no labor certification requirements and, in most cases, avoid paying FICA taxes for J-1 employees, making them a cost saving option for districts.[6]

The irony is that a legitimate pathway exists H-1B visas for highly skilled professionals. Unlike J-1 visas, H-1B visas are actual work visas that offer a path to residency and even citizenship. The employer pays the fees, not the worker. But H-1B visas come with employer responsibilities, and the costs can exceed $100,000 when accounting for legal fees and processing.^[7] For cash-strapped school districts, the temptation to use J-1 teachers as a cheaper alternative is obvious, even if it’s ethically questionable.

According to an article from The Nation in 2020, the J-1 program has become a way for employers across industries to access foreign labor without providing the protections and pathways that work visas require.^[8] “The Philippine government, similarly to the US State Department, classifies J-1 participants as study abroad students, rather than overseas workers. Yet US government oversight agencies, labor advocacy nonprofits, and grassroots organizations argue that the visa program functions as an unregulated pipeline for temporary migrant labor and props up US industries. At its worst, the program creates the conditions for human trafficking.”^[9]

The cumulative effect of these practices, the predatory fees, the housing exploitation, the lack of pathways to permanence, the lack of worker oversight and protection, creates a system that treats Filipino teachers as disposable. They fill our neediest classrooms, working with students who have complex education requirements. Yet, they are given no real future or stability and arrive in the United States already thousands of dollars in debt. 

The armed ICE raid on J-1 Filipino teachers in Hawaii, in May of this year, illustrates the precarious position the educators occupy. They’re skilled professionals one day, entrusted with educating our children, and the next, potential deportation targets.^[10] This is not how we should treat teachers; it is not how we should treat anyone who comes to our country with skills we desperately need.

The solution is straightforward, even if implementation will be difficult. First, school districts must stop using J-1 visas to fill permanent teaching positions. If a district needs a teacher for more than a single school year, that teacher should be sponsored through an appropriate work visa, with all the protections and pathways that entail.

There also needs to be standardized oversight of international recruitment agencies. Where teacher unions exist, they should collaborate with state legislators to establish enforceable standards for any agency placing teachers in schools, imposing severe penalties on the exploitative practices that are currently rampant.

Finally, we need to reform the J-1 program itself. The program was meant for cultural exchange, not as a source for cheap labor to fill permanent positions in understaffed industries. The Filipino teachers arriving in our school districts are skilled educators who have left their families and disrupted their lives, facing uncertainty, to teach in American schools. They deserve better than a system designed to exploit their skills while denying them a secure future.

[1] https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/use-and-abuse-of-the-j-1-exchange-visitor-teacher-program#_ftn8

[2] https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/culture-shock-exploitation-j-1-cultural-exchange-workers/

[3] https://laborlaw.ph/overseas-filipino-workers-ofws/  

[4] https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/use-and-abuse-of-the-j-1-exchange-visitor-teacher-program

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/trump-100000-fee-h1b-visa/

[8] https://www.thenation.com/article/society/j1-visa-work/

[9] Id.

[10] https://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2025/05/maui-teacher-describes-trauma-brought-on-by-ice-raid/