BALTIMORE — The Trump administration’s restrictions on hiring foreign scientists are making it more difficult for the agency to attract top scientific talent, a top Food and Drug Administration official said Thursday.
“[The policy] definitely has created an additional challenge, I think, for us,” said Melanie Keller, the FDA’s acting associate commissioner for scientific and clinical recruitment. She added that “the U.S. just doesn’t graduate the number that we need to fill our vacancies.”
She was referring to a Department of Homeland Security policy the agency has been implementing since at least last August, which requires the agency to restrict many of its employment offers to people who have lived in the U.S. for three of the past five years. STAT reported last year that the FDA had directed hiring managers to limit their employment offers under the policy.
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