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As the nation's nursing shortage balloons, the American Hospital Association (AHA) has teamed up with other organizations in campaigning for the State Department to expedite immigration approval for international nurses.

At least 5,000 nurses from other countries have been approved to work in the U.S. and are awaiting immigration, according to campaign leaders, but their paperwork has been held up since they were designated a lower priority for visas in late April.

After thus far failing to lobby the State Department to re-prioritize these visas, the AHA, the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment (), and staffing firm launched a campaign to apply pressure. This includes a petition on that boasted nearly 16,000 signatures as of Tuesday, with a 25,000-signature goal.

Gone are the days of personal protective equipment shortages, noted Patty Jeffrey, RN, president of the AAIHR. "Today it's a healthcare-giver crisis," she said. The goal is "to get these nurses into the country as soon as possible. If we took action today, these folks could be at a bedside by October."

In the Change.org comments section, people from all over the world chimed in. "American nurses deserves [sic] to have more helping hands," wrote a woman identifying herself as living in Lagos, Nigeria.

"We nurses have waited for this opportunity for so long," wrote another woman from Davao City, Philippines.

Among the obstacles to the visa approvals is the fact that the State Department's embassies are dealing with COVID outbreaks and staff shortages themselves, Jeffrey said. The AHA referred to "unprecedented processing delays" in a June 30 letter.

Approved visa petitions are up from 60,000 monthly in 2019 to more than 500,000 monthly this year, "making the State Department's priority schedule difficult to allow qualified international nurses to emigrate and work in U.S. hospitals," according to an .

"I think it's unintentional," Jeffrey said of the visa de-prioritization, suggesting that the State Department simply overlooked the importance of the healthcare workforce in favor of other issues.

In a letter that the AHA drafted to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, they wrote, "We request that the State Department place registered nurses seeking immigrant visas in the First Tier of the Department's current priority for processing. There has never been a more urgent need for the care that foreign-trained nurses provide than during the current COVID-19 pandemic and its looming aftermath."

Every nurse awaiting a visa has already been approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, passed the nation's nursing licensing exam, and earned a degree equivalent to an American nursing degree, the letter stated. They have soldiered through a multi-year process to prepare to immigrate here as working nurses, Jeffrey said, "and now the door has shut on them."

The AHA declined to comment for this story, with a spokesperson noting that the letter "lays out our views on the topic."

The U.S. State Department also declined to comment, directing 番茄社区 to the April "for information on how the Department is prioritizing visas until it is safe and feasible to resume normal processing."

The Federation of American Hospitals (FAH) also drafted a letter to the State Department in July. "To our dismay, we received a less than satisfactory response from the State Department, which failed to recognize the gravity of the workforce shortages our hospitals are facing, and our immediate need for foreign trained nurses to fill our workforce gap."

The FAH thus drafted a new letter on Tuesday and addressed it to Jeffrey Zients, who coordinates the Biden administration's COVID task force, to "request ... immediate intervention," wrote FAH president and CEO Charles N. Kahn III, MPH. "The FAH and our member hospitals strongly urge the White House and the State Department to re-evaluate the Immigrant Visa Prioritization guidance to prioritize highly trained nurses and medical professionals and ensure that registered nurses seeking immigrant visas are in the First Tier of the Department's priority list for processing."

Jeffrey voiced concern that a resolution may take months. "It's an issue that really only the Department of State can solve; we need them to identify how to let these nurses in," she said. "Now we're held up in a time of crisis."

According to Avant's blog post, "There are solutions to the priority structure as it is not based on statutes or regulations and can be amended at the state's discretion."

"You don't solve the nursing shortage overnight, but this is one piece," said Jeffrey.

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