When attempting to modify or renew their immigration status, Jamaicans who have outstanding college loans and come to the US will encounter several obstacles. The Government of Jamaica and its US counterparts have partnered to identify Jamaican immigrants with outstanding student loan arrears, according to Cheryl Surjue, manager of the Loan Servicing Department at the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB).
She mentioned instances of several professional groups that have immigrated to the US and other nations, leaving behind unpaid college loans, emphasizing that, “when they leave we are not able to fully track their whereabouts, [and] those loans tend to go bad”.
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“People who may have migrated on the J1 visa and want to renew their status in the US, before they can actually do that, there’s an arrangement where the US Government needs to find out from us [Jamaica] if this person is indebted to the Government,” Surjue stated.
According to her, this is done in order to ascertain whether a person has an unpaid loan debt prior to having their immigration status modified.
Surjue emphasized that repaying the loan would include paying out the whole balance in addition to bringing the account current.
“It is at this point that you’ll find most of these beneficiaries will actually start servicing their loans because we did not know and they didn’t communicate with us that they migrated,” she explained.
According to Surjue, the agreement with the US government has helped the organization recover unpaid debts.
However, she issued a warning, saying it is ideal if people contact the bureau before moving and plan to pay off their debt.
Surjue explained, “Before you get to that point, we want persons to be responsible borrowers. This is why we’ve actually launched our financial literacy program, to know how we can assist and how the beneficiaries may go about repaying their loan — and not wait until it gets to that point of the loan being bad or we have to solicit debt collectors to try and locate you.”
