Immigrants Make Up 17% of the U.S. Healthcare Workforce. Here Is What the Data Actually Shows.

What the Numbers Say

As of 2024, immigrants made up about 19% of the total U.S. workforce, roughly 31 million workers, according to a KFF analysis of Current Population Survey and American Community Survey data published June 18, 2026. Authors Drishti Pillai and Samantha Artiga ran the numbers specifically on healthcare, and they are significant.

Immigrants hold 17% of all healthcare jobs in the U.S. Within the overall healthcare workforce, 28% of physicians and surgeons are immigrants, as are 30% of direct care workers in long-term settings. Within hospitals specifically, immigrants played a particularly large role as physicians and surgeons, accounting for 30% of that group. In hospital non-clinical roles, immigrants make up 29% of building cleaning and maintenance staff.

The top countries of origin for immigrant healthcare workers are the Philippines (12%), Mexico (11%), and India (7%).

What Has Changed Since January 2025

The Trump administration has moved aggressively on immigration since taking office, including efforts to end Temporary Protected Status designations for multiple countries, pauses and restrictions on new visa issuance, and significantly increased enforcement, per KFF.

The effect on the overall noncitizen worker pool has been measurable. Between January 2025 and April 2026, the number of noncitizen immigrant workers fell by about 600,000, from 15.4 million to 14.8 million, a 4% drop. That decline was offset at the aggregate level by an increase in naturalized citizen workers of over 800,000 (from 15.2 million to 16.0 million), and a 1% rise in U.S.-born workers.

In healthcare specifically, the overall workforce grew slightly, up about 130,000 workers to 19.6 million total. Noncitizen immigrant healthcare workers actually increased during this period, from 961,000 to 1.2 million. Naturalized citizen healthcare workers declined, from 2.5 million to 2.3 million.

The KFF data does not establish a direct causal link between specific immigration policy actions and those workforce shifts.

The Concern Worth Taking Seriously

Critics of current immigration policy argue that continued restrictions will hollow out a workforce the U.S. healthcare system has structurally depended on for decades. They point out that physician shortages, particularly in rural and underserved areas, were already severe before 2025, and that the pipeline of foreign-trained doctors through visa pathways like the J-1 and H-1B is now under pressure. The concern is not abstract: if noncitizen workers in nursing, home health, and long-term care continue to decline, there is no obvious domestic replacement pool ready to absorb those positions in the near term.

The Counterargument

Supporters of the administration's approach argue the U.S. should not have built a healthcare system structurally reliant on imported labor at the expense of training and hiring American workers. They argue visa programs have, in some cases, been used to suppress wages and bypass domestic candidates. Tightening those pipelines, the argument goes, creates long-term pressure to invest in domestic medical training and workforce development.

Whether that rebalancing actually happens, and on what timeline, is a genuine open question. The data does not answer it.

What Is NOT Established

The KFF brief describes the immigration policy environment and documents workforce composition, but it does not prove that current administration policies have already caused a healthcare staffing crisis. The overall healthcare workforce grew between January 2025 and April 2026. The noncitizen component in healthcare specifically went up, not down, during that window.

The data shows a potential vulnerability, concentrated in specific roles, not a documented collapse.

The Unresolved Question

The KFF brief notes that "continued reductions" in the number of immigrants could impact the U.S. economy and key industries, but the 15-month window it analyzed does not yet show that in healthcare. The real test will be whether restrictions translate into sustained declines in foreign-trained physician placements and direct care worker availability over the next several years, particularly as the U.S. population ages and demand for long-term care services accelerates. KFF's April 2026 data snapshot is the current baseline. The next update will show whether the trend lines have shifted.