International nurse visa pause extended despite staffing gaps

The government paused its processing of new visa applications until fiscal 2025, leaving thousands of international nurses in limbo as they look to fill health systems’ pervasive staffing gaps.

Each year, a pool of around 8,600 eligible, internationally educated nurses compete with other professionals that have bachelor’s-level degrees for 40,000 employment-based visa slots. Because of “continued high demand” for employment-based visas — the main category that foreign nurses are eligible for — the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs announced in its July visa bulletin that it will only consider applications with petitions filed on or before Dec. 1, 2021. This means for the rest of fiscal 2024, no more recent applicants will be granted visas, according to the June 5 notice.

Related: Pause on visa applications thwarting recruitment efforts

The backlog could get worse, as the State Department said it may push its processing cut off date for certain employment-based visas back further next month or make the category unavailable for applicants altogether.

The U.S.’ visa backlog has been building since May 2023 when the processing times for nurse visas doubled from 9 months to 18 months.

While distressing, the State Department's latest move isn't as severe as previous actions the government has taken to catch up on applications, said Jasper Tolarba, founder and president of the Society of Internationally Educated Nurses in North America. 

“This is mild compared to before,” he said. “When I first migrated here, the visa retrogression was about 10 years behind. Now we're just talking about three years, so it’s not out of the ordinary.”

International nurses seeking to enter the country should stay focused on building theirs skills and meeting necessary requirements so they are ready to go when visa petitions are eventually processed, Tolarba said.

In 2021, immigrant clinicians living in the U.S. accounted for more than 18% of all healthcare workers, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Some health systems are looking to international nurses as a possible staffing solution as the Biden administration's nursing home staffing rule and states' nurse staffing ratio standards add pressure to the existing workforce.

"Until we can correct capacity issues that force nursing schools to reject thousands of qualified applicants annually, international nurses will remain essential to safe nurse staffing,” said Patty Jeffrey, president of the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment, in a news release. “This latest visa freeze halts the flow of qualified international nurses when American hospitals need them most, and the only way to correct it is through congressional action."

One solution put forward by a bipartisan group of senators in 2023 is the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act, which calls for the government to recapture and reallocate thousands of previously issued but unused visas to licensed foreign nurses. However, no action has been taken on the bill, which requires employers to ensure that international workers won’t displace domestic employees.