On April 30, 2020, a bipartisan group of Senators announced that they will introduce a bipartisan bill (the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act), “to provide a temporary stopgap to quickly address our nation’s shortage of doctors and nurses, which poses a significant risk to our ability to effectively respond to the COVID-19 crisis. ” according to the Senator Durbin’s office press release.
All of Us is honored to be one of the immigrant organizations that advocated for this legislation through its grassroots members. Please find our statement here. We urged Congress to recapture unused green cards and exempt certain medical doctors from the green card numerical limits. We are extremely grateful to Congress for listening to our message.
So, at this vital time, All of Us strongly supports recapturing unused green cards from previous fiscal years for nurses, who are courageously fighting COVID-19 pandemic to save lives at the risk of their own. This is a minor adjustment that Congress should be able to do promptly in the next emergency legislation. The current green card delay for nurses is more than three years. In this pandemic, we cannot wait that long for fully staffed emergency rooms, clinics, and hospitals.
Likewise, we urge Congress to take medical doctors who qualify for a national interest waiver entirely outside of the categorical cap. The current green card delay for many doctors is more than 10 years. America needs the flexibility to respond to COVID-19 outbreaks that only a green card can provide to these desperately needed physicians.
All of Us, Open Letter to Congress, Apr 08, 2020
In a tweet, Senator Durbin indicated that the Senate Democrats will be highlighting the contributions of the immigrant health care workers during the COVID-19 crisis.