Mediaboss Marketing

WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), penned an op-ed in the Forum emphasizing the need for merit-based immigration reform to better support rural states like North Dakota in hiring highly-skilled, foreign-trained doctors to help fill open positions in hospitals and clinics across the country after introducing the bipartisan Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act. This legislation makes a limited number of green cards available to qualified immigrant doctors and nurses to address critical healthcare workforce shortages, allotting up to 25,000 immigrant visas for nurses and up to 15,000 immigrant visas for physicians.

Additionally, this legislation requires employers to attest immigrants from overseas who receive these visas will not displace an American worker. Eligible immigrant medical professionals will need to meet licensing requirements, pay filing fees, and clear rigorous national security and criminal history background checks before they can receive recaptured green cards.

Most of the conversation around immigration to the United States gets caught up in the lawlessness of the southern border, and rightfully so.The Biden administration has turned a blind eye to the law of the land, making legal, commonsense immigration reforms all the more difficult. But real needs exist, and bipartisan solutions are available if Washington would follow the law and focus on policies designed to welcome the workforce our communities need, wrote Senator Cramer.

In North Dakota, we rely on thousands of highly-skilled immigrants, especially for our rural health care. About a quarter of the physicians in our state are foreign-trained doctors who disproportionately serve in rural areas. We still have fewer physicians per 10,000 residents than most of the country, and we have more than 15 counties without a single primary care physician. This creates a challenging environment for a patients consistent and timely access to care. However, it also provides an opportunity to connect foreign trained healthcare professionals with communities in need, through a merit-based immigration approach, continued Senator Cramer.

It is no secret our immigration system is broken, but we should advance efforts to fix the system where bipartisan support exists. With its rapid economic growth and rural landscape, North Dakota relies heavily on legal immigrants to meet the high demand for healthcare providers in our communities. They are often the reason many of us have access to the high-quality medical care we expect. It is time to do the right thing by making it easier for highly skilled immigrants to live, raise their families, and work in our country, allowing them to contribute in meaningful ways to states like North Dakota, concluded Senator Cramer.

Most of the conversation around immigration to the United States gets caught up in the lawlessness of the southern border, and rightfully so.The Biden administration has turned a blind eye to the law of the land, making legal, commonsense immigration reforms all the more difficult. But real needs exist, and bipartisan solutions are available if Washington would follow the law and focus on policies designed to welcome the workforce our communities need.

One of the most obvious signs of the value of high-skilled immigration is likely at your local medical providers office. I often talk about how globally connected North Dakotans are as a result of our energy and agricultural exports. In the same way, our technically-trained doctors and nurses in clinics across the state are also part of our global connection.

In North Dakota, we rely on thousands of highly-skilled immigrants, especially for our rural health care. About a quarter of the physicians in our state are foreign-trained doctors who disproportionately serve in rural areas. We still have fewer physicians per 10,000 residents than most of the country, and we have more than 15 counties without a single primary care physician. This creates a challenging environment for a patients consistent and timely access to care. However, it also provides an opportunity to connect foreign trained healthcare professionals with communities in need, through a merit-based immigration approach.

According to the American Hospital Association, 610,388 nurses reported their intent to leave the nursing field by 2027, and the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates the U.S. could see a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034. North Dakota and the United States as a whole simply do not have enough doctors, nurses, and medical professionals to fill the positions needed to adequately care for our population. This hits especially hard in lower population, rural states like our own which are forced to compete with larger states and health systems for a constrained supply of these critical professionals.

Last week, I joined Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in reintroducing our bipartisan Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act. Our bill is the first step to solve healthcare workforce issues and reform our broken immigration system. Instead of allowing unused visas to go to waste, the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act recaptures visas Congress has already authorized.

The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would allow up to 25,000 doctors and 15,000 nurses to come to the United States to help fill open positions in hospitals and clinics across the country. Our bill also includes a provision to ensure the United States only grants visas to foreign practitioners if we cannot fill the position with an American doctor or nurse. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Acthas broad bipartisan support in Congress, because it recognizes quality health care simply is not possible without a strong workforce.

Allowing up to 40,000 visas for medical professionals is a win-win, proving we can find solutions to keep healthy staffing at medical facilities, while also making meaningful and productive reforms to our broken immigration system.

Similarly, I reintroduced the Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment Act with Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.,to make it easier for employers to hire the right person for the job, whether they were born in New Salem or New Delhi. Existing law places arbitrary per-country caps on employment-based immigrant visas, leaving visas for high-skilled immigrants unused and creating massive backlogs. The EAGLE Act would gradually remove these caps and also raise the per-country limit on family-sponsored visas. While our economy and workforce demands have changed, the employment-based immigration system has remained the same since 1990.

Our current immigration system ties temporary visa holders to their job, leaving them in limbo and unable to change jobs while they wait for permanent residency status. It is time we allow American employers to focus on hiring immigrants based on their merits, not their birthplace. Both these bills do not authorize any new immigration. They simply use the visas already in statute for the highly-trained workforce our country needs.

It is no secret our immigration system is broken, but we should advance efforts to fix the system where bipartisan support exists. With its rapid economic growth and rural landscape, North Dakota relies heavily on legal immigrants to meet the high demand for healthcare providers in our communities. They are often the reason many of us have access to the high-quality medical care we expect.

It is time to do the right thing by making it easier for highly skilled immigrants to live, raise their families, and work in our country, allowing them to contribute in meaningful ways to states like North Dakota.

Read the original:
ICYMI: Sen. Cramer Op-Ed: Immigration Reform Promotes a Healthy ... - Kevin Cramer