As an economist who studies how immigration influences economies, including health care systems, I see a consistent picture: Immigrants are a vital part of the health care workforce, especially in roles facing staffing shortages.
Yet current immigration policies — such as increased visa fees, stricter eligibility requirements, and enforcement actions that affect legally present workers living with undocumented family members, in addition to detention of legal residents and U.S. citizens — risk eroding this critical workforce, threatening timely care for millions of Americans. The timing couldn’t be worse.
America’s health care system is entering an unprecedented period of strain. An aging population, coupled with rising rates of chronic conditions, is driving demand for care to new heights.
The workforce isn’t growing fast enough to meet those needs. The U.S. faces a projected shortfall of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. Hospitals, clinics and elder-care services are expected to add about 2.1 million jobs between 2022 and 2032. Many of those will be front-line care-giving roles: home health, personal care and nursing assistants.
For decades, immigrant health care workers have filled gaps where U.S.-born workers are limited. Nationally, immigrants make up about 18 percent of the health care workforce, and they’re even more concentrated in critical roles. Roughly 1 in 4 physicians, 1 in 5 registered nurses and 1 in 3 home health aides are foreign-born.
These patterns transcend geography and partisan divides. From urban hospitals to rural clinics, immigrants help keep units staffed and beds open. When policies shrink that workforce the effects show up quickly: schedules thin out, services are scaled back, and capacity can drop.
Pipeline
While health care demand soars, the pipeline for new health care workers could struggle to keep pace under current rules. Training more doctors and nurses is essential — but it’s slow. With a decadelong runway for physicians, the fastest ways to prevent today’s shortages from becoming tomorrow’s access crisis are to improve retention and responsibly increase the supply of qualified clinicians who can practice here, including immigrants.
That pipeline also runs through U.S. universities. International students, who often pursue STEM and health-related fields at U.S. universities, are a key part of this pipeline. Yet recent surveys from the Council of Graduate Schools show a sharp decline in new international student enrollment for the 2025-26 academic year, driven partly by visa uncertainties and global talent competition.
If this trend holds, the smaller cohorts arriving today will mean fewer physicians, nurses, biostatisticians and medical researchers in the coming decade — precisely when demand peaks. Experts warn that tighter visa rules, higher application fees and stepped-up enforcement are likely to intensify shortages in the health care workforce.
The costs of restrictive immigration policies won’t appear in federal budgets but in human tolls: months spent with untreated depression, discomfort awaiting procedures and preventable hospitalizations.
Rural communities, often served by immigrant physicians, and urban nursing homes, reliant on immigrant aides, will feel this most acutely.
Most Americans won’t read a visa bulletin or a labor market forecast. But they will notice when it becomes harder to get care for a child, a partner or an aging parent.
If policymakers connect immigration policy to workforce realities and adjust it accordingly, they can help ensure that when Americans reach out for care, someone is there to answer.
Bedassa Tadesse is a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
