Administration quietly lifts hold on immigration applications for radiologists and other docs
The Trump administration has lifted the hold on immigration applications for radiologists and other physicians while leaving others waiting, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
Previously, the feds had stopped reviewing applications for people from several dozen countries they had deemed as “high risk.” However, last week, the administration “quietly made an exemption” for medical doctors with pending visa or green card applications, the AP says.
This comes after medical societies and immigration attorneys have for months sought exemptions for physicians, given widespread staffing shortages.
“There are lots of bans and lots of pauses that are happening right now,” Greg Siskind, an immigration attorney based in Memphis, Tennessee, told the news outlet. “It is all about making life miserable for people who are here legally so they will choose other countries.”
It’s unclear how many physicians have been impacted by the pause, the American Academy of Family Physicians says, according to the AP. Before the exemption, multiple immigrants have filed federal lawsuits to demand the government issue decisions on pending cases. Among them is Iranian physician Zahra Shokri Varniab, 33, who traveled to the U.S. three years ago to conduct research in radiology, according to the report.
She had waited for a green card to attend a residency program. However, her application “got stuck in the pause,” prompting her to file suit seeking answers. Federal officials eventually did, denying her application. Varniab, a postdoctoral radiology researcher at Stanford University, told the AP she believes the denial was due to her lawsuit, while government court filings have cited inconsistencies in her applications as to whether she plans to become a practicing radiologist or a researcher (she told the AP she plans to do both).
“I feel completely confused,” Shokri Varniab said, noting that the new exemption doesn’t appear to apply to her, since her case was already decided, though she plans to seek relief in court.
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Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.