After thousands of American health care workers lost their jobs due to vaccine mandates, health care companies apparently see an opportunity to profit from it by replacing these newly unemployed workers with immigrants.

AMN Healthcare is the largest health care staffing organization in the United States and staffs more hospitals with temporary and full-time workers than any other company in the U.S.  Nearly every major hospital system in the country uses AMN Healthcare or another medical staffing company similar to it.  Hospitals use these companies because there is seasonality to health care, and it's cheaper to temporarily increase staff during spikes like "flu season" than to employ all staff throughout the year.  That's how the travel nursing industry was born, and AMN Healthcare is the biggest player in the business. 

Despite "AMN" being an acronym for "American Mobile Nurses," there is hardly anything pro-American about AMN Healthcare.  They could be more accurately described as another corporation leveraging the immigration system to replace American workers and fatten its pocketbook. 

During its quarterly earnings call, one of AMN Healthcare's division presidents, Landry Seedig, shared his thoughts on recent legislation and how more lax immigration policies can advance their replacement strategy for fired American workers:

[O]ver the last year and a half there were a couple of challenges. One of those would have been some travel bans that were in place. ... More recently, we've seen some more positive legislation. So, kind of at that state department level we've seen the states prioritize employment visas to the top. So that way we bring in international nurses as well as their families into the United States. It's probably not enough. ... [T]hings like making more visas available would be a good legislative change that would help bringing in even more supply to the United States.

Biden's vaccine mandate costing thousands of healthcare workers their jobs and shutting down hospitals added additional stress to an already strained supply of qualified healthcare professionals in the labor market.  Now the largest health care staffing company in the U.S. is devising solutions to replace those workers with immigrants by actively working with state and federal governments to roll back immigration restrictions that may limit its ability to import replacement workers.

Like holders of H-1B visas, immigrant health care workers are cheaper and have far less negotiating power since their immigration status requires employment.  And while companies like AMN Healthcare hide behind the "temporary" status of these immigrants, they must realize that these replacement workers are here to stay.  As Seedig explains, these employment contracts are, "typically, two-to-three-year contracts and then very high rates where those nurses actually stay firm at those jobs.  So, a really good solution for them."

The multi-year contracts and "temporary" status help get them in the country, but many, if not most, "stay firm at those jobs" permanently.  Medical school graduates have already lobbied the government to stop importing foreign health care workers, who make it more difficult for Americans to gain residencies.  In 2020, over 5,700 doctors went unmatched for residencies as the U.S. "keeps importing thousands of foreign doctors on H-1B and J-1 visas to fill residency spots."  But this initiative for more immigrant health care workers is not wishful thinking.  Just weeks ago, AMN Healthcare announced the acquisition of Connectics USA, a company that"

specializes in nursing and allied direct hire placements and helps candidates through the immigration and licensure processes to their arrival in the United States. ... AMN is committed to helping healthcare organizations address the extreme and growing shortages of healthcare professionals by bringing in more qualified clinicians to the United States.

AMN Healthcare expressed no concern about the "growing shortages of health care professionals" when Biden's vaccine mandate laid off thousands of health care workers.  That's because AMN Healthcare is already quite cozy with Uncle Sam.  Last year, AMN Healthcare raked in millions of dollars through a government contract with FEMA to staff vaccine and testing centers.  It helped the company achieve record revenue in 2021.  This year, AMN Healthcare seeks another favor from Uncle Sam: cheaper labor.

For years, many Americans complained about immigrant labor stealing American jobs and lowering the wages of others, but importing cheaper labor is no longer limited to your local construction site or Nancy Pelosi's housekeepers.  Big tech companies regularly lobby to allow more immigrants to take American jobs.  Many state governors also advocate for more immigrant workers.  Every year, America brings in over 1.4 million immigrants to take American jobs.

Feel free to ask "American Mobile Nurses" what exactly is "American" about their replacement strategy.

Bode Lang is a conservative blogger who produces conservative videos on YouTube but is hoping you'll move with him to Rumble.

Image: Bru-nO via Pixabay, Pixabay License.