The Donald Trump administration has quietly backed off from its travel ban on nearly 39 countries and secretly allowed doctors from those countries to work and live in the US. The New York Times reported that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services updated its website late last week, without any formal announcement, that physicians are no longer subject to the processing hold. “Applications involving medical practitioners will continue to be processed,” the Department of Homeland Security told the NYT.As soon as the administration announced a travel ban on 39 countries, all immigration processing of applicants from those countries was halted. This included all types of visas, work permits, green cards etc. Doctors who were already working in the US were placed on administrative leave by the hospitals as they came under investigation.Since this was slowly leading to a healthcare crisis in the US as 25 percent of all doctors working in the US are foreign doctors, the administration lifted the ban only for doctors – but those who are already in the US. Doctors from Africa, the Middle East and Venezuela were also among those displaced from their jobs.The travel ban also affected existing foreign doctors in many ways. For example, Ezequiel Veliz, a Venezuelan family doctor, was detained by federal agents at a checkpoint in Texas on April 6. He lost legal status because his visa renewal was not being processed due to travel restrictions. He was released after 10 days.On April 8, several doctor associations, including the American Academies of Family Physicians, Neurology, and Pediatrics, signed a letter to the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security expressing “urgent concern” about barriers preventing “qualified, vetted physicians” from entering and remaining in the United States, and demanding a national interest exemption from the policy as well as expedited processing of their cases.“Affected physicians have not yet been informed of any changes to their visa process, but we are hopeful after seeing this update,” said Sebastian Arurana, founder of Project IMG, an organization representing thousands of international medical graduates in the United States.Can doctors from these countries with travel restrictions come to America from outside?According to experts, this is not for physicians who are from these countries but are not currently present in the US. It is also not for residents visiting from outside the US as external travel restrictions are in place. Experts said that this is only for those doctors who are already in America.
