Bipartisan Senate proposals would boost healthcare workforce by recycling visas

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Georgia Sen. David Perdue announced legislation Thursday that would reallocate 40,000 unused visas to immigrant healthcare workers to help stop the coronavirus pandemic.

“This proposal would simply reallocate a limited number of unused visas from prior years for doctors and nurses who are qualified to help in our fight against COVID-19,” said Perdue, a Republican.

Reallocating visas under Perdue’s Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act, co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Todd Young and Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Chris Coons, would not increase the number of immigrants in the United States. Rather, the bill proposes using visas that Congress authorized to be distributed to healthcare workers who have already filed petitions for visas.

“It is unacceptable that thousands of 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 the fight against COVID-19,” Durbin said.

From fiscal years 1992 to 2020, Congress authorized over 200,000 visas that went unused. In addition to allocating 40,000 unused visas, of which 25,000 would go to nurses and 15,000 physicians, family members would be granted visas from the pool of remaining visas not set aside for healthcare workers.

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President Trump proposed temporarily suspending all immigration on April 21 and signed an executive order a day later mandating a 60-day freeze on most green cards while still allowing visa-processing for employees with temporary visa status. The bipartisan bill would not contradict the executive order, which applies only to immigrants currently outside of the U.S.

His goal was to ensure that citizens who lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic will be in the best position to be rehired or find new jobs when the economy reopens.

“Crucially, we’ll also preserve our healthcare resources for American patients. We have to take care of our patients. We have to take care of our great American workers. And that’s what we’re doing,” Trump said of the executive order.

The bill has support from the American Hospitals Association and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, as well as Americans for Prosperity, a free market policy think tank.

The senators will introduce the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act when the Senate reconvenes next week.

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