On November 2nd, U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), along with U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), introduced bipartisan legislation to address the shortage of doctors and nurses. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would recapture 25,000 unused immigrant visas for nurses and 15,000 unused immigrant visas for physicians that Congress has previously authorized providing a desperately needed boost to our health care system in rural and urban areas.
The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act:
- Allows for the “recapture” of green cards that were authorized by Congress but unused in previous years, allotting up to 25,000 immigrant visas for nurses and up to 15,000 immigrant visas for physicians, as well as recaptured visas for immediate family members of such individuals;
- Requires employers to attest that immigrants from overseas who receive these visas will not displace an American worker;
- Requires eligible immigrant medical professionals to meet licensing requirements, pay filing fees, and clear rigorous national security and criminal history background checks before they can receive recaptured green cards.
The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Booker (D-NJ), Collins (R-ME), Carper (D-DE), Ernst (R-IA), Coons (D-DE), Rounds (R-SD), Duckworth (D-IL), Thune (R-SD), Padilla (D-CA), Tillis (R-NC), Sinema (I-AZ), Wicker (R-MS), Wyden (D-OR), and Young (R-IN).
In regard to the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act the Senator Durbin said, “It is unacceptable that thousands of trained, highly qualified doctors currently working in the U.S. on temporary visas are stuck in the green card backlog, putting their futures in jeopardy and limiting their ability to contribute to our health care shortages across the country.”
U.S. Representative Brad Schneider (D-IL-10) will introduce companion legislation today in the House of Representatives.
