Not quite the welcome mat: Hawaii solicits teachers, then ICE steps in

Come to Hawaii, they said. We need teachers. We'll help you get here. You’ll even get a $3,000 housing bonus. Once you’re settled, you’ll be paid the standard state rate for teachers of similar credentials.

Hawaii was experiencing a severe teacher shortage in 2022, with more than a thousand vacant positions, especially in rural districts. So the state Department of Education put together a plan to entice teachers to spend five years under the federal J-1 visa program teaching Hawaii’s kids.

Hawaii’s marketing campaign worked. Especially in the case of credentialed teachers from the Philippines, an important state demographic , considering nearly a quarter of Hawaii public school students are Filipino, compared to only 7% of educators.

The program was thriving. Hawaii reduced its teacher vacancies from 1,000 to 166 this year. That’s 834 positions filled, primarily from other countries, offering new educational and cultural opportunities for Hawaii students.

A win-win for all concerned, right? It sounded like a good idea at the time. Just one problem. Hawaii is part of the United States. And what the feds say, goes.

Welcome to the new America! Where none of us – U.S. citizenship or not, official papers or not -- is exempt from having armed federal agents suddenly busting through our doors in the dark morning hours, rousting us from our beds, herding us outside, properly clothed or not, to stand shivering in fright for almost an hour as they search our house. Some of the teachers draped themselves in blankets, others emerged dripping from their showers, wrapped in towels.

That is what happened last week at the home of about a dozen J-1 visa Filipino teachers, a natural-born U.S. citizen and their young children, as ICE agents acted with force on inaccurate information that an undocumented immigrant was sheltering there.

“Tuesday morning I woke up to agents dressed in black with guns outside of my window, coming at the door saying to ‘open up’ and that they had a warrant,” a teacher said of the 6:15 a.m. raid on Maui.

The teachers said the warrant wasn’t shown until after the ICE agents searched the premises. Their requests to bring their papers out as proof they belong here were denied until the end of the ordeal.

The teachers were cleared, but the concern still lingers. How can the state protect our treasured immigrants who come here at our invitation?

At this point, no one knows. The Hawaii State Teachers Association has stepped in. But what can they do? What can any of us do?

How far will any of us go to protect the unprotected against strong-arming by the government? In this environment, it’s so hard to tell.

It’s especially telling, that despite the fright, the humiliation, the embarrasement of standing half-clad in a yard surrounded by federal agents, the teachers didn’t call in sick. They didn’t demand attorneys or counselors. They gathered their wits about them and did what they were hired to do. They went to their classrooms and proceeded to teach. Ya gotta love them for that. At least some in this whole sordid tale have a little class.

Union Fears Maui ICE Raid Will Scare Away Foreign Teachers. Hawaiʻi has been recruiting teachers from the Philippines for several years to address the state’s ongoing teacher shortage. Civil Beat.


Maui teacher describes trauma brought on by ICE raid. A group of teachers from the Philippines and a teacher who is a U.S. citizen were rousted from their beds early Tuesday morning along with their families at their Kahului residence by armed Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents serving a search warrant. Hawaii News Now.

Commentary: Nancy Cook Lauer, who’s covered state and local governments for 30 years in Hawaii and Florida, is the publisher of All Hawaii News (www.allhawaiinews.com)