State Department blog glosses over abuses common in J-1 cultural exchange program
An SPLC report found widespread disillusionment among foreign students who felt deceived and exploited by recruiters and employers.
This summer, officials from the State Department are blogging about their tour of jobsites where foreign students are participating in the department’s J-1 visa program. It’s commendable that the State Department is reaching out to J-1 participants in the field, but the “Route J-1” blog fails to address the critical issues facing the program and the young people it lures to this country for temporary jobs.
Earlier this year, the SPLC published a report on the J-1 Summer Work Travel and Intern and Trainee programs called Culture Shock: The Exploitation of J-1 Cultural Exchange Workers. The report provides firsthand accounts from foreign youths and demonstrates why the program’s employment-based exchange categories are not fulfilling their original goal of cultural exchange.
Our report also highlights the lack of transparency in the J-1 recruitment process, the high fees that J-1 participants must pay to private recruiters and sponsors to participate in the program, and the State Department’s failure to hold law-breaking and abusive employers accountable. Young people eager to visit and learn about the United States too often find that the program’s promise of cultural exchange is an empty one.
Instead of returning home to their countries with goodwill about the United States, many students report feeling deceived and disillusioned, and ending up in debt.
Route J-1 paints a very different picture. The J-1 program is the nation’s largest guest worker program, but Route J-1 barely mentions the work aspect of the program. Participants have reported to the SPLC that their experience is dominated by long hours of low-wage work, such as cleaning hotel rooms, leaving them with little energy, time or money to engage in cultural exchange. Many participants are so saddled with debt from recruiter and sponsor fees that they’re forced to work two jobs just to survive.
Employers, who don’t have to pay payroll taxes for J-1 workers, are reaping the benefits of a program that provides them with cheap, temporary labor. Many of the program’s largest employers, such as McDonald’s and Hilton, are noticeably absent from the Route J-1 blog. The blog instead focuses on community efforts to support J-1 workers, but fails to mention that communities such as Ocean City, Maryland, organized their response to deal with a significant crises facing J-1 participants in their communities.
What is clear from Route J-1 is that the State Department and its sponsors continue to advertise the J-1 program as a cultural exchange program despite its focus on work, not cultural activities.
Culture Shock highlighted various cities in the South where the SPLC uncovered serious problems with J-1 sponsors, employers and housing through extensive outreach to students. Route J-1 has yet to venture down South or speak with the workers highlighted in our report. Hopefully, the State Department’s route will take it to some of these sites so it can grapple with the program’s undeniable failures.
