Unsubstantiated assertions of a U.S. teacher shortage are being used to rationalize recruitment of overseas-trained teachers--a practice fraught with difficulties, including loss to host countries of some of their best educators, abuse of some teachers working in legally precarious situations, and the possibility of displacing U.S. teachers with less costly colleagues. We affirm a universal right to meaningful work, yet find that overseas-trained teachers are ending up in highly problematic situations in the U.S., and fear that they are being pitted against U.S. teachers in a political struggle unrelated to teaching and learning. Battles over teachers' collective-bargaining rights and recruitment of overseas-trained teachers with little stake in those rights both are occurring in the context of a public discourse that takes for granted that teachers are overpaid and in short supply. Oversight mechanisms should be established to ensure that overseas-trained teachers are neither exploited nor used to disempower their U.S. colleagues. Also, purveyors of the public discourse on education should document much more carefully politically potent claims about teacher shortages. (Contains 1 figure, 3 tables, and 9 notes.)