President Trump's Muslim Ban: Making America Safe or Making America Sick?
While The Trump Administration claims their unconstitutional Muslim ban is designed to keep America safe, the facts show that’s not the case. Today, the New York Times offers additional evidence: the ban is preventing doctors from serving communities across the country.
“The Trump administration has mounted a vigorous defense of its ban on travel from seven majority-Muslim nations, saying it is necessary to prevent terrorists from entering the United States. But the ban, now blocked by a federal judge, also ensnared travelers important to the well-being of many Americans: doctors.”
“Foreign-born physicians have become crucial to the delivery of medical care in the United States. They work in small towns where there are no other doctors, in poor urban neighborhoods and in Veterans Affairs hospitals.”
“Forty-two percent of office visits in rural America are with foreign-born physicians, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.”
“Foreign-born physicians ‘are the doctors in small towns in Maine and Iowa,’ said Dr. Patricia F. Walker, the associate director of the University of Minnesota’s Global Health Pathway, which helps refugee doctors practice in the United States. ‘They go to the places where graduates of Harvard Medical School don’t want to go,’ she said.”
“Dr. Hooman Parsi, an oncologist so talented that he has an O-1 visa granted to individuals with ‘extraordinary ability or achievement,’ was to start seeing patients on Wednesday in San Bernardino, Calif.”
“A federal judge in Seattle lifted the administration’s travel ban on Friday, and a federal appeals court has declined to restore it. Yet Dr. Parsi is still stuck in Iran, waiting for a delayed visa amid the confusion while his American employer fumes.”
“‘We need him desperately,’ said Dr. Richy Agajanian, the managing partner of the Oncology Institute of Hope and Innovation, which had just hired him. ‘We had an office completely constructed — we spent three months on it, and it was supposed to open Feb. 1. Now we can’t open it. This is really sad and frustrating.’”