USDA halts hiring aid with foreign doctors

WASHINGTON -- The Agriculture Department stopped helping rural communities hire foreign doctors because some of the physicians turned up on government watch lists following the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a USDA memo made public Friday.

Investigators also found evidence of fraud and criminal conduct in several cases, according to the memo provided by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.

"In a post-Sept. 11 environment, they're fearful that somebody might slip through the cracks under their watch," said Roberts, a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Agriculture Committee.

USDA has played the lead role in recommending waivers that allow certain foreign physicians to stay in the country if they work in hospitals and clinics where doctors are in short supply. In remote communities where hospitals struggle to recruit and keep physicians, these doctors are sometimes the sole source of primary care.

But after seeking clearance for more than 3,000 foreign doctors over the past eight years, USDA suspended its waiver process and said it would return any pending applications, 82 of them in all. At least four are from Kansas, which has around 50 foreign doctors still practicing under the visa waiver program out of nearly 100 waivers requested.

The memo was part of a briefing Roberts requested earlier in the week. Among the problems identified in the memo are:

USDA officials said the agency had picked seven waiver applications at random and sent them to the Justice Department.

"Three of the seven were considered to be national security risks," the USDA memo reads.

Of the 3,120 waivers it requested, 1,091 were for physicians from Arab and Middle Eastern countries.

The agency performs limited review and virtually no verification of the documentation provided by applicants and their prospective employers.