A global nurse recruitment agency is suing the Trump administration over a new federal policy requiring employers to pay a $100,000 application fee to sponsor workers on H-1B visas.
Global Nurse Force joined several industry groups and unions in filing a lawsuit Oct. 3 in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, claiming the fees could force the company to close its U.S. operations and lead its hospital clients to reduce capacity.
“Many of Global Nurse Force’s clients are non-profit hospitals operating on thin margins and cannot absorb the $100,000 fee per nurse,” the lawsuit said. “If required to pay this fee, they will be forced to cancel international recruitment, leaving their positions unfilled.”
The company said it has placed 10,000 nurses at leading hospitals around the world, including healthcare systems in Washington, Ohio, Louisiana and the District of Columbia.
In September, President Trump signed an executive order requiring individuals from overseas — or the companies looking to hire them — seeking jobs in high-skilled functions to pay a $100,000 fee for a new H-1B visa. Previously, sponsors typically paid around $3,500 for new petitions. Hospitals and health systems often rely on the program to recruit healthcare workers, with more than 4,000 U.S. research centers and hospitals sponsoring the visas as of June.
Most often, foreign nurses enter the U.S. through the EB-3 visa program, which is not affected by the new policy. While there are not “huge numbers” of nurses entering on H-1B visas, Global Nurse Force CEO Lalit Pattanaik told MedPage Today that the program enables specialized nurses to arrive in underserved communities in a matter of months, as opposed to the EB-3 pathway, which can take years due to backlogs.
Hospitals have been urging federal officials to exempt healthcare workers from the policy, warning the increased fees are not feasible for many providers and would exacerbate existing shortfalls, particularly in rural and underserved areas. The new policy gives the homeland security secretary authority to issue exemptions on a case-by-case basis, and the White House has signaled it would consider exceptions for clinicians, though it is unclear if any exemptions have been granted.
In the complaint, Global Nurse Force said a Louisiana health system recently completed the interview and selection process, planning to hire more than 200 nurses. The system hit pause on those plans when the increased fees were announced.
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