The Commission on Filipinos Overseas reminded Thursday that Filipino teachers holding J-1 exchange visitor visas must return to the Philippines upon completing their program, following reports of illegal recruiters falsely depicting the visa as a pathway to permanent U.S. residency. The warning came after a meeting between CFO officials and representatives from Chicago Public Schools regarding Filipino teachers, the J-1 visa program and global learning.
“The heart of the Exchange Visitor Program is the bridge it builds between nations, but for that bridge to remain functional, our beneficiaries must fulfill their obligation to bring those global skills back to the Philippines,” said CFO Secretary Dante Ang II. Christine Murphy-Johnson of the Chicago Public Schools delegation emphasized that the visa program is designed for professional development and cultural immersion, not as a direct pathway to permanent migration.
Filipino teachers are covered by a mandatory two-year home-country physical presence requirement after completing the J-1 program. According to the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., a waiver of this requirement is difficult to obtain, not guaranteed and requires exceptional hardship or highly meritorious circumstances. The embassy earlier this month warned Filipino teachers seeking U.S. employment to carefully review visa requirements after reports emerged of unscrupulous recruiters demanding large sums of money in exchange for false promises of permanent residency or citizenship through the J-1 visa.
The Philippines has been the top country sending teachers under the J-1 visa category over the last decade, with deployments steadily increasing due to domestic teacher shortages in the United States. Chicago currently hosts approximately 275 Filipino teachers out of its 350 international educators in the district. Key discussion areas in the meeting included strengthening tracking and support for teachers returning to the Philippines and integrating their learnings from Chicago into the Philippine educational system.
