February 4, 2022 – As we near the two-year mark of living during a pandemic, strained American hospitals are looking abroad for healthcare workers. According to AP News, “there’s an unusually high number of green cards available this year for foreign professionals, including nurses, who want to move to the United States – twice as many as just a few years ago.”
Hospitals in the U.S. are facing debilitating shortages of nurses, a challenge that’s only gotten worse since the beginning of the pandemic. Because of the extreme burnout, many nurses have retired or left their jobs altogether. At the same time, COVID cases continue to fluctuate with new variants and surges putting enormous amounts of strain and pressure on the health care system.
With the increased amount of available green cards, recruiters are hoping “some of the extras can be snapped up by nurses seeking to work in pandemic-weary hospitals in the United States.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told AP News that it would expedite the renewal of work permits for healthcare workers, “which could keep some foreign citizens already in the United States on the job.”