Texas, with the blessing of the federal government, is freezing H-1B visa hiring in a way that will harm the ability of hospitals to bring talented foreign medical professionals to treat U.S. patients.
When people get sick, they don’t tend to care about the national origin of the doctor who can heal them. One of the advantages of America being the world leader in medical innovation is that it attracts the best medical talent from everywhere. Some of those people use the H-1B visa program to work temporarily in the U.S.
But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) directed all state agencies and public universities this week to stop filing H-1B petitions through the end of May 2027. His directive applies to some of the world’s best hospitals. The MD Anderson Cancer Center is part of the University of Texas System, which had 11.7 million outpatient visits last year.
Most U.S. employers are subject to an H-1B visa cap, which limits the number of visas at 65,000, plus 20,000 for foreigners who earned U.S. graduate degrees. Universities are exempt from these caps, so applicants don’t need to hope for winning a lottery to be accepted.
There were almost 2,000 H-1B petitions from Texas public medical schools and teaching hospitals between 2017 and 2022, according to data accessed by the Institute for Progress. Losing 2,000 workers wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it’s still a significant chunk of talent. If the professionals at these top medical centers believe they need these workers, state politicians better have a really good reason to second-guess them.
There could be isolated situations in which universities are abusing their exemption from the H-1B visa cap to underpay employees, given that workers hired under the cap aren’t allowed to compete for most nonuniversity jobs. But the way to counter that is to find abuses and stop them, not freeze all visa petitions.
Abbott says “the economy of Texas should work for the benefit of Texas workers and Texas employers.” That’s correct, and that’s why Texas workers should receive the best quality medical care, which means medical employers should be able to hire the best talent. As the UT System says on its website, 90 percent of graduates are employed in the state within a year of graduating, so the system has been working quite well.
Texas isn’t alone. Florida is also seeking a one-year pause on H-1B visas for public universities. This is backward. States should be competing with each other to attract the best workers, not drive them away. That’s especially true when keeping them out means hindering treatment for cancer patients.
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