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December 3, 2020

Dear John,

The COVID-19 pandemic, as so many other public-health crises and natural disasters, has exposed the systemic failures of the U.S. health system and the disparities to which it gives rise. These disparities typically fall hardest on racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, people who do not speak English well, and rural communities.

The shortage of health-care professionals experienced since the pandemic's start now is dire in places ranging from El Paso, Texas to Bismarck, North Dakota, and Hutchinson, Kansas. Yet an estimated 263,000 immigrants in the United States with college degrees in health-related fields are on the sidelines, not working at their skill levels or even at all.

A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) commentary, co-authored by the president of the American Public Health Association (APHA), notes the promising innovations undertaken earlier this year by eight states to speed the licensure of international health professionals already resident in the United States.

While the policies have yet to live up to their promise of cutting through existing regulatory thickets, this untapped pool of talent holds language and cultural skills not replicated among the current health workforce. These skills are particularly valuable for staffing the rapidly expanded contact-tracing initiatives now being carried out at federal and state levels.

"Those skills are needed now to build trust in communities that have become fearful of punitive immigration enforcement policies and rhetoric as well as complex new restrictions flowing from the Trump administration's public-charge policies on immigrants' access to health care and other benefits," write Michael Fix and Jeanne Batalova of MPI and José Ramón Fernández-Peña of the APHA. "That trust will be even more essential in convincing skeptical populations of the safety and effectiveness of a vaccine."

The commentary examines the credential recognition and other efforts that can enable skilled, underemployed international health-care professionals to join the frontlines of the pandemic response, bringing with them valuable linguistic and cultural skills.

I commend this commentary to your attention. You can read it here: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/role-immigrant-health-care-professionals-united-states-during-pandemic.

With best regards,

Michelle Mittelstadt
Director of Communications and Public Affairs,
Migration Policy Institute

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The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development, and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national, and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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