The White House said Monday that doctors may be exempt from the Donald Trump administration’s new $100,000 fee for high-skilled H-1B visa applications.
Trump shocked the world on Friday with a proclamation announcing a big fee hike for the H1B visa program's applications. The move roiled the technology industry and upended the plans of highly educated foreign students. The White House clarified on Saturday that the new policy doesn’t apply to current visa holders.
“The Proclamation allows for potential exemptions, which can include physicians and medical residents,” Bloomberg News quoted White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers saying in an email.
Donald Trump has said companies abuse H-1Bs to suppress wages, calling it a security threat. Doctors expressed alarm about how the visa fee could choke off the pipeline of international medical graduates.
The $100,000 fee for H-1B visas “risks shutting off the pipeline of highly trained physicians that patients depend on, especially in rural and underserved communities,” American Medical Association President Bobby Mukkamala, a Michigan head and neck surgeon, told Bloomberg News.
H1B visa program in the healthcare sector
Health care employers often sponsor medical residents and other physicians on H-1B visas. According to federal data compiled by the health research group KFF, more than 76 million Americans live in places where the government has designated a shortage of primary care doctors.
Children’s Research Hospital are among the healthcare industry’s top sponsors of H-1B visas. Mayo has more than 300 approved visas, according to the data. Paying the fee could add millions to the labour costs at large medical systems.
Some warned the change would choke off a vital channel that brought talented people to the US, powering medical and scientific research that was long the envy of the world.
Workers in India, a top source of doctors and nurses in the US, are frantic about the policy changes. About 22% of immigrant doctors are from India, according to finance services provider Remitly.