From The New York Times: “Trump’s Immigration Policy Sidelines Foreign Doctors Amid Shortage”

On April 4, 2026, The New York Times published an article highlighting how the Trump Administration’s recent 39-country travel ban is exacerbating the US’s current physician shortage. NYT reporter Miriam Jordan highlights that the 65,000 physician shortage is becoming worse because foreign physicians from travel ban countries are losing their work authorization while their employment extensions are left pending indefinitely with US Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”). The Trump Administration states that citizens from these countries pose an increased security threat to the United States but has yet to substantively consider evidence from these foreign nationals to the contrary; instead, USCIS has left their cases unadjudicated, causing work and life disruptions for both the foreign nationals and their employers. 

Foreign medical school graduates fill a critical gap in the US healthcare workforce. Jordan reports that  the US is dependent upon foreign medical graduates to fill spots in American medical residency programs because domestic medical schools do not produce enough US graduates. In the upcoming academic year beginning July 1, 2026, there were 41,000 residency spots but only 32,000 US medical school graduates applied to fill them, leaving a 9,000 medical graduate gap. Foreign medical graduates fill these spots and then frequently accept post-residency positions in primary care and other high-shortage medical subspecialties. Foreign medical graduates also work in medically underserved areas at higher rates than US citizen physicians. It is therefore these high-shortage medical areas that are acutely experiencing the impact of the 39-country ban, as their physicians are losing their ability to work while their work extension applications languish with USCIS. 

Read Jordan’s article from The New York Times here.