Rural Health Providers Hit by $100K Trump Visa Fee

Rural health providers hit by $100K Trump visa fee

More than 30 people have applied for a lab technician job at West River Health Services in Hettinger, North Dakota, a thousand-person town in the rural southwestern part of the state.

Rural Health Providers Hit by $100K Trump Visa Fee

More than 30 people have applied for a lab technician job at West River Health Services in Hettinger, North Dakota, a thousand-person town in the rural southwestern part of the state. Because they aren’t U.S. citizens, they would each need a visa. West River and other companies used to pay up to $5,000 in fees to sponsor each H-1B visa for such workers. The nonprofit hospital now has to pay $100,000 if it wants to hire one of the new applicants,…

Rural health providers could be collateral damage from $100,000 Trump visa fee

Lab technician Kathrine Abelita is one of nine workers — six technicians and three nurses — at West River Health Services in rural North Dakota who are current or former H-1B visa holders. The visa is for highly skilled foreign workers employed in fields in which companies struggle to hire enough workers who already live in the U.S. (Bekki Holzkamm)Bekki Holzkamm has been trying to hire a lab technician at a hospital in rural North Dakota since …

Rural Healthcare Providers Could Be Collateral Damage

KFF Health News—Bekki Holzkamm has been trying to hire a lab technician at a hospital in rural North Dakota since late summer. Not one U.S. citizen has applied. West River Health Services in Hettinger, a town of about 1,000 residents in the southwestern part of the state, has four options, and none is good. The hospital could fork over $100,000 for the Trump administration’s new H-1B visa fee and hire one of the more than 30 applicants from the …