A disappointed Bruce said: "We are disappointed because we did our homework over the summer for Hendry Thomas, a midfielder who plays alongside Palacios on the Honduras team.
"We have worked so hard on that over the last three or four months, agreed a fee, been out to Miami, been out to Honduras and parts of South America to try to tie the boy up and unfortunately he hasn't met the work permit criteria.
"We are absolutely devastated we didn't get that, we lost it on appeal yesterday. We had that one pencilled in as one of our midfield players so we will have to look again.
"We have been kicked in the teeth. It saddens me for all the work the club has done. You get all that done and because of a little red tape we have lost out.
"I only have two recognised central midfielders in Brown and Palacios so we will have to look to strengthen that area.
"Because he played in the Olympic team, he didn't play in the national team. That ended up counting against him as it is not a [FIFA] registered competition like a World Cup.
"He played for the Olympic team because the Honduras national association ploughed all their efforts into that because it took precedence because they had never been to the Olympics before.
"That stopped him playing for the [full] national team and you need appearances for the national team to meet the criteria."