ICE vs. Filipino Teachers

This week news broke of an ICE raid on Maui, with the US official thug patrol out to grab any brown people who might present “threats to national security or public safety, or who otherwise undermine the integrity of U.S. immigration laws.”

The “targeted, intelligence-­driven operation" included rounding up some of the Filipino teachers who work in Hawaiian schools. Said one special agent

For the safety of the agents and the occupants, residents of the home were briefly detained and interviewed in addition to the search. At the conclusion of the search, HSI special agents left the location without any arrests made.

 I'm sure that left the Filipino with a warm, fuzzy, welcome-to-the-United-States feeling inside, and that this will in no way affect Hawaii's attempt to shore up the teacher shortage with imported educators.

But here's a thing worth noting-- Hawaii is not the only state with Filipino teachers. 

Way back in 2014, in an article now accessible only via Wayback machine, Joseph Willams at takepart, a website that has since shut down, reported on the rise of the Philippines as a source for teachers. Heck, Williams pointed back to a PBS piece from 2011 about four Filipina teachers who took jobs in Baltimore. Williams found teachers transplanted from the Philippines to Louisiana, Arizona, Los Angeles, and Kansas.

And a decade later, it's still a thing. There are agencies devoted to placing Filipino teachers in the US. There are websites explaining how to get a job here. There are still periodic stories about how this is working out, like this 2022 Washington Post portrait of a Filipina teacher trying "to help save a struggling school in rural Arizona." There are whole youtube channels by Filipino teachers, like this one from Alyssa who appears to teach in Arizona. Her channel covers everything from how to find a US job, to filling out the paperwork, to issues like what to do if a student lies. She has posted 271 videos, has almost 39K subscribers, and also runs a busy Facebook page.

Here's short video on the issues involved, focusing on a teacher in the schools of Shelby, Montana, a city of fewer that 4,000 people. 

The video hits several of the issues involved, but the title-- What if your Filipino teacher disappeared-- points to one in particular. These teachers come on J-1 visas, which are good for 5 years for teachers. The video is from 2019. 

But these programs have always been problematic, a kind of low-cost outsourcing that let's policy leaders use the "teacher shortage" as an excuse to look for cheaper "solutions"--anything to avoid the basic free market lesson that if nobody wants your job, you have to sweeten the offer. Instead, the "exchange" teacher program lets states look for a place where people think te unsweetened pot looks like a good deal. I can't fault the Filipino teachers for grabbing a good opportunity. I can't even fauilt small towns like Shelby for searching for ways that fill gaps and don't break their bank. But this is a patc h, not a solution. And sometimes it's not even that.

In some cases the programs are borderline human trafficking. In 2017, one of these placement companies lost a lawsuit filed by 350 Filipino teachers "who were held in virtual bondage." And that was in Baton Rouge-- you know, coastal Louisiana where 7500 teachers were laid off after Hurricane Katrina. I'm pretty sure that's a region where there were options beyond outsourcing to law-cost Filipino teachers. But Filipino teachers are cheap, and while they depend on those visas, they are unlikely to cause trouble. 

Now, the current regime looks to gather up any immigrant who has any kind of smudge on their record (because to fulfill the promise of deporting millions of hardened criminals, the regime has to redefine "hardened criminals"), and it has to be scary for some of those teachers here on a visa as "exchange" teachers. 

I'm wondering how many of the targets in Maui were relatives of the teachers, but I feel certain the Maui teachers won't be the last exchange teachers to get a visit from ICE. These programs, like much of US immigration, have problems, but my solution of choice wouod not be to turn the US into a hostile police state where immigrants have to worry about someone kicking down the door to drag them away. 

I don't love the Filipino teacher patch for US schyools, but it is clearly working for some folks. Being in ICE crosshairs will clearly not help it work better.