To enhance our Nation’s nurse and physician workforce by recapturing unused immigrant visas.
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
IntroducedMr. Schneider (for himself and Mr. Bacon) introduced the following …
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act addresses the shortage of nurses and doctors in the United States by making available up to 40,000 unused immigrant visas from past years (1992-2024). These visas would be reserved specifically for foreign-trained nurses (25,000 visas) and physicians (15,000 visas) who already have pending visa applications. The bill speeds up the visa process by requiring expedited processing and waiving certain country-based limits that normally restrict how many immigrants can come from any single country.
Who Benefits and How
Foreign-trained nurses and physicians with pending visa applications are the primary beneficiaries, as they would gain access to visas that would otherwise remain unused and get faster processing times. Up to 40,000 healthcare workers (plus their family members) could immigrate to the U.S. under this program within three years of the bill's enactment. Healthcare employers - including hospitals, nursing homes, and medical clinics - also benefit by gaining access to a larger pool of qualified healthcare workers to address staffing shortages, though they must provide expedited processing and attestations.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of State must provide premium processing services for these applications without charging the usual premium fees, creating an unfunded mandate that increases their workload. Healthcare employers face new compliance requirements, including mandatory attestations that hiring foreign workers will not displace American workers. Domestic nurses and physicians may face increased competition for positions, though the effect is unclear given the stated workforce shortage.
Key Provisions
- Recaptures unused employment-based immigrant visas from 1992-2024, making up to 40,000 available for healthcare workers
- Reserves 25,000 visas for professional nurses and 15,000 for physicians with petitions filed within three years of enactment
- Exempts these visas from per-country numerical caps, allowing faster processing for applicants from high-demand countries
- Requires USCIS and State Department to provide free expedited processing for these visa applications
- Mandates employers to attest that hiring foreign healthcare workers will not displace U.S. workers
- Allows family members to receive visas alongside the primary healthcare worker applicant
Evidence Chain:
This summary is derived from the structured analysis below. See "Detailed Analysis" for per-title beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
Primary Purpose
Recaptures unused employment-based immigrant visas to allow up to 40,000 foreign healthcare workers (25,000 nurses and 15,000 physicians) to immigrate to the United States
Policy Domains
Legislative Strategy
"Address healthcare workforce shortages by utilizing previously unused visa allocations rather than creating new visa categories, focusing on nurses and physicians with pending petitions"
Likely Beneficiaries
- Foreign-trained nurses with pending visa petitions (up to 25,000)
- Foreign-trained physicians with pending visa petitions (up to 15,000)
- Healthcare employers (hospitals, clinics, nursing homes) facing staffing shortages
- Family members of qualifying healthcare workers
Likely Burden Bearers
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (must provide free premium processing)
- Department of State (must expedite visa processing)
- Potentially: domestic healthcare workers facing increased competition for positions
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "the_director"
- → Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
- "the_secretary_of_state"
- → Secretary of State
- "the_secretary_of_homeland_security"
- → Secretary of Homeland Security
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
Up to 40,000 employment-based immigrants (and their family members) whose immigrant worker petitions were filed no later than three years following enactment of this Act
The difference between total employment-based visas made available in fiscal years 1992-2024 and the total number actually used in those fiscal years
Healthcare workers in nursing profession eligible for 25,000 reserved visas
Medical doctors eligible for 15,000 reserved visas
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology