H-1B Visas

A bipartisan group of House members on Tuesday introduced legislation to waive the Trump administration’s $100,000 application fee for H‑1B visas when employers sponsor foreign doctors and nurses to work in the United States. The fee, imposed last September on new skilled international hires, has alarmed hospitals that rely on foreign medical residents and internationally trained physicians, many of whom staff rural and medically underserved areas and hard‑to‑fill primary care positions. The bill is sponsored by Reps. Mike Lawler (R‑N.Y.), Sanford D. Bishop Jr. (D‑Ga.), Maria Elvira Salazar (R‑Fla.) and Yvette Clarke (D‑N.Y.), and has been welcomed by the American Medical Association, which warns the fee could worsen a projected shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. The measure also comes amid an ongoing national nursing shortfall, with about 500,000 immigrant nurses—roughly one in six U.S. registered nurses as of 2022—facing dramatically higher sponsorship costs under the current fee regime. While tech and finance firms also use H‑1Bs, this bill is narrowly tailored to health‑care workers, setting up an early test of whether Congress is willing to carve out exceptions to Trump’s broader crackdown on employment‑based visas when it collides with U.S. health‑care capacity.