Au Pair Ban by Administration

[Anonymous]

Amending my previous post- I did a google search for the news re au pairs and saw that yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case which basically affirms the lower court's ruling that au pairs must be paid state minimum wages. So now, you're going to have to pay more to an au pair than to a nanny, plus be on the hook to give her all the benefits of family life. Good. Luck. With. That.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amending my previous post- I did a google search for the news re au pairs and saw that yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case which basically affirms the lower court's ruling that au pairs must be paid state minimum wages. So now, you're going to have to pay more to an au pair than to a nanny, plus be on the hook to give her all the benefits of family life. Good. Luck. With. That.

Obviously you are not a lawyer - b/c declining a case in one jurisdiction does NOT impact other jurisdictions. Other states are NOT following suit because we are in the middle of a massive, national childcare crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amending my previous post- I did a google search for the news re au pairs and saw that yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case which basically affirms the lower court's ruling that au pairs must be paid state minimum wages. So now, you're going to have to pay more to an au pair than to a nanny, plus be on the hook to give her all the benefits of family life. Good. Luck. With. That.

Obviously you are not a lawyer - b/c declining a case in one jurisdiction does NOT impact other jurisdictions. Other states are NOT following suit because we are in the middle of a massive, national childcare crisis.

Time for the unemployed to stop dreaming of jobs that will never come back and learn to do childcare

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Enjoy, Trump voters!

Who cares? Au Pairs seem to hate the program, host parents are disappointed at least 50% of the time judging by rematch rates, and there have been too many legal challenges to the program for it to be a safe bet for parents just looking for child care. Good riddance. Most professionals are working from home now anyway, and they won't have to worry about giving someone "the best year" during a pandemic.

What on earth are you talking about? Our au pairs have become like family to us. Our kids adore them. Each au pair has stayed with us for two years and declared it the best experience of their lives. They've each gone home and gotten good professional jobs because of their fluency in English. It is great for many.

Professionals can't work from home with young kids without childcare indefinitely, nor while homeschooling. It just doesn't work. Having live in care (no exposure risk) during the pandemic has been amazing for our family.

I'm glad its working for you. Once the pandemic is over, you can get more au pairs. It's not exactly a crisis.

We had a new au pair arriving in few weeks. Now she can't come. We have no childcare. She has been planning this for a year and already quit her job and gave up her apartment to come, so she's unemployed and homeless. It's pretty darn close to a crisis for us and her.

Are you sure? It isn’t clear if you already have a valid visa whether you are allowed to enter the country. Has this been clarified? It seems no new visas will be issued but what about au pairs already holding valid J-1 visas?

She doesnt have her visa yet, so she's under the ban. She was supposed to have her appointment a long time ago, but COVID cause delays. She had an appointment for this week.

Reading your follow up, she is dumber than I had thought. She quit her job before she even got approved for the Visa?? In the middle of a pandemic and is now homeless due to this? We don't need more idiots in this country...so sorry full, idiot quota reached. One of two things are real.

1. She is beyond dumb
2. You are full of crap.

Her lease was up for renewal. She couldn't commit to another year if she was coming and couldn't keep the job without a place to live in that town. It seemed like a sure thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Time for the unemployed to stop dreaming of jobs that will never come back and learn to do childcare

Not going to happen. The pool of nannies rarely contain folks from the group the the adminstration is trying to "help." But this is so typical, right? Put in place a controversal measure that sounds good to some but has the opposite effect than intended. No Au Pairs, Camp Counselors, etc, etc? Okay... I'm sure there is an excelent and caring undocumented nanny out there that I can pay under the table plus our family can just spend less this year on discressionary to cover the increase in childcare costs. Excelent formula for stimulating the economy and employing 'mericans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amending my previous post- I did a google search for the news re au pairs and saw that yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case which basically affirms the lower court's ruling that au pairs must be paid state minimum wages. So now, you're going to have to pay more to an au pair than to a nanny, plus be on the hook to give her all the benefits of family life. Good. Luck. With. That.

Obviously you are not a lawyer - b/c declining a case in one jurisdiction does NOT impact other jurisdictions. Other states are NOT following suit because we are in the middle of a massive, national childcare crisis.

I'm not a lawyer, but I do read the news and while there are powerful groups lobbying to increase wages for APs, there really isn't a strong voice for the counterpoint of the diplomatic benefits of this program. The momentum is certainly not in favor of keeping the program as an appealing choice for families. And I'm not even sure that I believe this program is good for international relations anymore since many au pairs complain about their experiences. This program is suffering a long, slow, and painful death. And its murderers are on both sides of the aisle- first progressives attacked it as exploitation of foreign labor, and now protectionists are attacking it simply because it's foreign. If you really want this program to continue to exist, you're going to have to step up your efforts because your voice is being drowned out

[Anonymous]

So for everyone who said that Trump wouldn't ban au pairs because too many of his staffers have them-- well, isn't that what the "national interest" exception is for? So Kayleigh can have an au pair, but the rest of us get screwed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So for everyone who said that Trump wouldn't ban au pairs because too many of his staffers have them-- well, isn't that what the "national interest" exception is for? So Kayleigh can have an au pair, but the rest of us get screwed?

Apparently they are giving exemptions, so you just have to be a Republican donor and you can still have an au pair.

[Anonymous]

What is the “National interest” exemption?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Current au pairs are in the drivers seat. You better treat them well or they will rematch.

Anonymous wrote:Current au pairs are in the drivers seat. You better treat them well or they will rematch.

Hahaha! Yeah, they are in the drivers seat until the companies go bankrupt from this decision and have no support or flights home. Although companies give limited support to both sides, they sponsor visas. When they go out of business, you have 18,000 Aupairs without flights home or sponsored visas.

[Anonymous]

I think some small agencies may go under - but ccap should weather the storm. So everyone now can enjoy a basic monopoly.

[Anonymous]

I also have an au pair that quit her job in preparation for arrival. I feel really really terrible about it (and we are fine on the au pair front, ours extended for another six months, I just feel really badly for our future au pair that is now in a fairly difficult financial situation).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Enjoy, Trump voters!

Who cares? Au Pairs seem to hate the program, host parents are disappointed at least 50% of the time judging by rematch rates, and there have been too many legal challenges to the program for it to be a safe bet for parents just looking for child care. Good riddance. Most professionals are working from home now anyway, and they won't have to worry about giving someone "the best year" during a pandemic.

What on earth are you talking about? Our au pairs have become like family to us. Our kids adore them. Each au pair has stayed with us for two years and declared it the best experience of their lives. They've each gone home and gotten good professional jobs because of their fluency in English. It is great for many.

Professionals can't work from home with young kids without childcare indefinitely, nor while homeschooling. It just doesn't work. Having live in care (no exposure risk) during the pandemic has been amazing for our family.

I'm glad its working for you. Once the pandemic is over, you can get more au pairs. It's not exactly a crisis.

We had a new au pair arriving in few weeks. Now she can't come. We have no childcare. She has been planning this for a year and already quit her job and gave up her apartment to come, so she's unemployed and homeless. It's pretty darn close to a crisis for us and her.

Exactly. This sucks. Without full time school in the fall, how are people ever going to get back to work without options for childcare?

Only .03% of American families with children use au pairs. Which is to say rhat while APs are an option, they so rare as to be statistically irrelevant to the search for child care. The intent of the order was to increase work opportunities for Americans. Lots of displaced waitresses would love to have that job. Au Pairs are really just here for fun. I mean, we are all trying yo pull together as a country and help each other out right?

Hmm, not everyone wants a “displaced waitress” for childcare.

I have lots of lovely waitress friends and they all like kids on a superficial level and they would have no problem baby-sitting for 3 hours on a Saturday but looking after kids for 45hours is very different. Au pairs might be here for fun, but if you filtered the APs properly it wasn’t that hard to find qualified childcare with lots of experience with kids that a waitress simply doesn’t have. Also most independent adults who are not used to childcare might absolutely dread being home with kids PLUS the parents. It’s not like anyone right now working as a nanny or else will have the normal/ideal nanny conditions. I can’t see people who aren’t used to working with kids being reliable.

I can see lots of people thinking that’s what they want to do because they “like kids” and then realizing looking after kids full time during Covid isn’t fun and quitting after a bit, leaving parents in a tight spot.


Finding reliable local childcare is hard on good days, let alone right now, where qualified childcare is rare gold and everybody else is just winging it.

I’m also a hard pass on a “displaced waitress”. Au pairs have minimum childcare hour requirements and references in order to even be eligible for the program. Your average furloughed retail worker or waitress simply isn’t qualified to work with children all day.

[Anonymous]

Honestly this is the last drop on a long road of challenges with having an au pair. We are just done. This should have been something to make our lives better, and it is a struggle after another. We will just do day care from now on, as they started to open...

[Anonymous]

Totally agree with PP. we are also changing our plans and going to day care. The au pair program ( and the au pairs) is just not worth it anymore. The limited options, the rematch pool, all the crazy things host families are offering, it just does not make sense anymore. We encourage others to think hard and do the same... once we decided, finally we felt better, and stopped worrying about the continuity of the program. Yhere are other options!