Foreign-born professionals from the 39 countries the Trump administration has deemed “high-risk,” including many in Massachusetts, are seeing their careers stalled due to a recent policy that pauses all immigration benefits.
In response, researchers, physicians and scientists have filed multiple lawsuits related to the change, saying the harms have had a significant impact on their lives. On Wednesday, plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction that would ban the changes from continuing in one case out of the Northern District of California.
“This pause would affect my medical career, and it’s caused a lots of pressure on me,” said Dr. Marjan Azin, one of over 30 plaintiffs and a postdoctoral research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. She’s in the middle of applying for residency programs.
Azin, 37, said she was shocked by the policy change on December 2, and “just cried.”
Immigration “benefits” are what federal immigration authorities call services including the issuing of green cards, work authorizations, asylum, naturalization and more. The pause, put into effect on Dec. 2 and expanded to add more countries on Jan. 1, is having widespread impacts on people with many types of visas and immigration statuses, especially those in the middle of renewing their visas, work authorizations, or in the middle of immigration status changes.
Azin obtained her medical degree at Tehran University of Medical Science, and waited for three years to come to the United States. Azin came to the U.S. in 2019 to work at a Mass. General Hospital lab studying cancer development on a J-1 visa. After that expired, she was sponsored by her employer for an H-1B visa, which doesn’t expire until 2027.
The H-1B visa allows her to work as a post-doctorate researcher and instructor at the lab, focusing on skin cancer prevention on organ transplant recipients, and treatment of early-stage skin and breast cancer. But in most cases, that type of visa doesn’t allow someone to start a medical residency.
Azin applied for a green card a few years ago, counting on it to attend a medical residency program. Now as she nears the end of her journey for a green card, the process is paused because she’s originally from a country on the new “high-risk” list— Iran.
Most medical residencies start in June, and she’s already completed much of the application process. If the pause on benefits doesn’t end, she won’t be able to attend medical school, something she has waited years for.
“I would like to go to internal medicine and then go to oncology and serve cancer patients. So that’s my future goal. It is necessary to pass this medical training to be able to see patients,” Azin said.
Azin and more than 30 others filed suit. Their California-based attorney, Curtis Morrison, is also the lead attorney on another related suit out of Maryland. He filed for a temporary ban on Wednesday that would reverse the government’s decision.
“I have a feeling that they did not consider the impact to the ability of people in the U.S. lawfully — their ability to work,” he said. “I don’t think they considered that. I don’t think they consider the impact on U.S. hospitals.”
Explaining the move last month, Trump administration officials wrote the move was necessary “to ensure that all asylum applicants and aliens from high-risk countries of concern who entered the United States do not pose a threat to national security or public safety.”
Morrison is also representing plaintiffs in a second suit filed in the past month around the benefits pause — including Bahar, a dietician and a PhD candidate at a local school of medicine. GBH News is granting her anonymity due to concerns over privacy.
“It’s a pause on our lives, and a permanent pause on essentially all of important decision-making abilities that we have,” she said.
Bahar came to the United States on an F-1 student visa, and has applied for a green card through the EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver), a U.S. green card path for those with advanced degrees or exceptional ability in fields of national importance.
“I aspire to become a scientist who uses various different technologies, like the continuous glucose monitor, to help individuals mitigate the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, like cardiovascular disease, which is fully aligned with the current administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative,” she said.
Without the right type of visa, Bahar won’t be able to work after she finishes her program. She’s at the stage of her schooling where she’s planning for postdoctoral positions and fellowships— all of which require lawful residence in the U.S.
The policy changes also created an additional fear for Bahar — one that is deeply personal.
“It’s challenging, because myself, including many other Iranians ... haven’t seen our families in years. Last time I saw my parents was three and a half years ago,” she said through tears. “We’ll see what will happen next with the lawsuit.”
