Yesterday, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, along with Senators David Perdue (R-GA), Todd Young (R-IN), and Chris Coons (D-DE) announced they will introduce bipartisan legislation, 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.

The Senators’ proposal, to be introduced when the Senate reconvenes, would recapture tens of thousands of previously unused visas for medical workers and allocate them to doctors and nurses who can help in the fight against COVID-19 in the United States, where one-sixth of our healthcare workforce is foreign-born.

FWD.us joins the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, American Hospital Association, American Organization for Nursing Leadership, Physicians for American Healthcare Access, American Immigration Lawyers Association and National Immigration Forum in endorsing this vital legislation.

“Ensuring that doctors and nurses can have their permanent residency expedited through our immigration system is a smart bipartisan approach that will help save countless lives in the midst of this public health emergency. We commend Senators Perdue, Durbin, Young and Coons for working across party lines on this vital legislation,” said FWD.us President Todd Schulte. “Americans need Congress to continue to enact immigration policies that strengthen our workforce and protect legal immigration channels. Immigrants and immigration are essential not only to our nation's ability to respond to this urgent health crisis, but to rebuild our economy and create jobs out of this economic crisis.”

A full text of the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act is available here. A summary of the legislation is available here. A section-by-section of the legislation is available here.