On May 5th and 8th, 2020 respectively, the Senate and the House of Representatives introduced the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act (S. 3599, H.R. 6788) in order to speed up the permanent residency process for foreign-born nurses and doctors in the U.S. The bill has bipartisan support in both chambers. Maine’s Senator Angus King is a co-sponsor.
The bill would “recapture” employment-based immigrant visas unused from 1992 through FY 2020, in order to increase the number of visas available to doctors and nurses waiting in the pipeline for permanent residency. It would also remove annual limits on the number of immigrants that can come from any single country. Twenty-five thousand recaptured visas would be made available for nurses, and 15,000 for doctors. Without the bill, the these medical professionals will be waiting for years, and in some cases decades, before they could begin the final steps for permanent residency. Finally, the bill would require doctors and nurses’ residency applications to be processed under existing expedited “premium processing” procedures, without being charged the usual extra premium for this service.
While on the immigrant visa waiting list, most of these doctors and nurses are on nonimmigrant visas that don’t allow them to work where the need is greatest without violating the terms of their visas, even if their petitioning medical facility approves. And if they violate their visas, that can make them ineligible for permanent residency.
Immigrants punch above their weight in the U.S. healthcare system. While less than 14% of the U.S. population, they represent 28% of doctors, and 15.5% of registered nurses. The COVID-19 crisis is highlighting flaws in the U.S. immigration system preventing the flexibility for healthcare professionals that this public health crisis demands.
The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act is common sense legislation that will allow these essential foreign doctors and nurses to gain the permanent status they deserve and to serve wherever they are needed.
MeBIC supports the bill.