American medical school graduates are asking President Trump to expand his executive order to halt the H-1B and J-1 visa programs that import thousands of foreign doctors every year — taking jobs from qualified Americans who are unmatched for residencies.
In interviews with columnist Michelle Malkin, American medical graduates — unmatched for residencies — say there is no shortage of qualified doctors.
The medical process mandates that these graduates attend residency in order to begin practicing in the U.S. If a graduate is unmatched, they are often left with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and no way to pay it back.
One such graduate, Dr. Ricardo, told Malkin that more than 5,700 American medical graduates have gone unmatched for residencies this year as the U.S. keeps importing thousands of foreign doctors on H-1B and J-1 visas to fill residency spots.
American taxpayer dollars help fund, through Medicare, matching foreign doctors with U.S. residencies.
“This past year, there were a total of 34,266 training positions for doctors,” Ricardo said. “We had 33,887 matched positions — which only left just north of 1,000 free training positions … we had 5,717 U.S. citizens go unmatched this year.”
Another American medical graduate, Dr. Emily, said she and others should not be forced to compete against import foreign doctors for limited jobs. Emily said:
In summary, we had 5,000 Americans who did not get a job who now face extreme burdens of cost of living … and we pump in at least 5,000, if not 10,000 foreigners. Again, there is no shortage. We have thousands of people who are our own people, I want my own people first, always. There’s no reason for these people getting visas over us because we can easily meet the demand.
Dr. Paulina, a first-generation American medical graduate, say the process is especially unfair because she and others take out hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to get a quality medical education while imported foreign doctors from India and Pakistan go to school for free.
Paulina said:
Our parents came here, they sacrificed, they worked so hard. They put us through college and then they have to sit here and see us not get accepted into medical schools and our jobs being taken over by these people who don’t even have medical school loans like we have. They don’t pay anything for their medical education. It’s all free in India and Pakistan … because there’s so much poverty in those countries. They’re supposed to be helping their own and then they come here and take our jobs. We have student loans to pay off. And we’re left in limbo, we can’t do anything about it.
Dr. Leroy, a black American, said he has about $450,000 in student loans that he has no way of paying off today.
“You can’t have a playing field where people from India can score high on an exam and have preference while we are driving Uber and doing Amazon Flex in order to pay our bills,” Leroy said.
The medical graduates said it is vital that Trump halt the H-1B and J-1 visa programs in any expansion of his executive order, especially when more than a million American medical professionals have been laid off during the Chinese coronavirus crisis.
“It’s like saying to students, ‘You’re going to finish middle school in your district, but the high school in your district will be open to the entire world. We’re not going to ensure that only people from the district go to this high school,'” Leroy explained.
While Trump considers expanding the order, Senators David Perdue (R-GA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Todd Young (R-IN), and Chris Coons (D-DE) — as well as the Democrats’ HEROES Act — have sought to increase the number of foreign doctors and nurses taking high-paying American medical jobs.
Every year, the U.S. admits about 1.2 million legal immigrants on green cards to permanently resettle in the country. In addition, another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. Often, Americans are fired and replaced by foreign visa workers. Many are forced to train their foreign replacements.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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