J-1 Visa Program: A Cheap Labor Program

Americans visiting beaches, neighborhood pools, summer camps, and resorts this summer are likely to encounter foreign workers filling jobs as lifeguards, ice-cream scoopers, housekeepers, counselors, and restaurant workers. Many may not realize that these workers are in the United States on J-1 exchange visas—a program the State Department promotes as an instrument of cultural exchange and public diplomacy. A new episode of the Center for Immigration Studies podcast Parsing Immigration Policy examines the findings of the recently published CIS report, Exchange Visa Programs Operate Mainly For Cheap Labor, Not Cultural Exchange, with Jessica Vaughan, the Center's director of policy studies. The report finds that the J-1 program has evolved into a major temporary foreign-worker program: About 75 percent of the 275,000 J-1 visas issued in 2025 went to workers, while only about 25 percent went to more traditional exchange programs. Summer Work Travel alone accounted for 105,000 visas, making it the largest J-1 category. Another 32,000 went to foreign camp counselors. The State Department has approved more than 1,500 third-party organizations to administer J-1 programs, effectively outsourcing much of the program's oversight to organizations that can benefit financially from placing foreign workers with U.S. employers. J-1 summer exchange workers are supposed to head home soon, but thousands will ignore the rules and overstay, joining the illegal population. The J-1 category has one of the highest overstay rates among U.S. entry categories, according to DHS overstay data. The episode also examines potential reforms, including stronger penalties for sponsors, greater scrutiny of countries with high overstay rates, the termination of the subcategories that have no meaningful public diplomacy value, and transferring work-based J-1 programs to the Department of Labor for appropriate labor-market oversight. Host Mark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Guest Jessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies Links Exchange Visa Programs Operate Mainly For Cheap Labor, Not Cultural Exchange J-1 Visas: Cheap Labor as Cultural Exchange Intro Montage Voices in the opening montage: Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference. Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad. President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act. Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech. Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977. Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview. Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019. Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance. Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor. Candidate Trump in 2015 campaign speech. Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".