The AAMC submitted Dec. 1 comments (PDF) to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requesting the reversal of a policy enacted on Oct. 30 to end the automatic extensions of employment authorization documents (EADs). Specifically, the DHS rule ends the longstanding system of extending work authorization for certain EADs based on timely filed renewal applications. In doing so, the DHS ends a practice upon which academic medical centers rely for continuous work authorization for key learners and contributors, such as physician trainees and researchers. It is nearly certain that those resident and fellow physicians who rely upon EADs as their authorization to carry out U.S. graduate medical education will experience significant interruptions in their training without an extension of work authorization for timely filed EAD renewal applications. The comments highlighted that the department has failed to point to actual quantitative or qualitative harms suffered by Americans as a result of the current EAD work authorization extension policy and that the new policy would create unnecessary stress for those physician trainees and researchers as well as interruptions to related research and patient care.
- Washington Highlights