As our schools start to fill with educators on J-1 Visas, it’s important to take a moment to describe what these people go through for the privilege of teaching. This doesn’t mean they aren’t they aren’t good at what they are doing. What it means is they are being brought here through an unregulated industry, and because Hope Blinco is too lazy to even attempt to fill teaching vacancies.

The problem with the unregulated J-1 cultural visa program is the fact that people that enter that program, do so under extremely predatory terms. Most people don’t realize that people making menial money, are then required to pay 10-12k a year to the staffing agency for the privilege of working in the United States. They also have no path to citizenship other than marriage. The visa itself is not convertible.

The impact to the Mineral County School District is that all the money being paid into the state pension, will be used and instead reallocated to other funds. The current PERS rate is 29.75% of the annual salary, fully paid by the District.

The promise of a better life, when being loan sharked for a double digit percentage of your wage and no real path to citizenship harms them as much as the students. By the time these J-1 visa teachers get the hang of American education, they must by law return home empty handed.

When it was brought to Andre Ponder’s attention there are numerous lawsuits about the staffing agency in question tracking, he dismissed it and said not to worry about it. Meanwhile, Hope Blinco was perfectly okay withholding taxes on fictitious social security numbers knowing they would never get the social security or Medicare back because the ID number didn’t actually exist.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to make Hope Blinco do her job and recruit staff that stay longer term and see these students reach their potential?

Here is an example

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

https://oag.dc.gov/release/ag-racine-sues-teacher-exchange-companies