[suzanne4]

Since there seems to be some confusion as to how things are actually done in the US, going to make this thread a sticky for now and we will see how well that it is accepted.

The US requires licensure in the state where on wishes to work, licenses from other countries or from other states cannot be used in place of that one.

The Compact License Pact does not exist if you do not already have legal residency in a state that is under that in the US; therefore any state that you do get licensed in, the license will be good for that one state only.

Licensure and immigration are two very different things and even with possessing a license, and possibly even a SSN# for another reason, you must have a visa that will permit you to work here. There is no way to legally work while waiting for your papers to be processed, as we have heard some nurses informed by their attorneys that do not have their best interests at heart.

Going to school in the US for nursing or anything else, does not guarantee one that they will be able to get a visa to remain here when done and even if they get the OPT for the one year. There are many more applicants than there are visas at present.

There is still a limit as to the number of visas that are issued per year and this is based on country of birth, not where one is currently a citizen of, or where they hold residency; but the country that is listed on your birth certificate.

No preference in getting a visa is given to someone that graduated from school here vs. an RN from another country. Same requirements and only thing that is waived is the English requirement if the basic training was done here.

One applies for licensure as an RN, it is not possible to apply for the NCLEX exam as there is no application for that and one must get permission from a state to sit for the exam.

Passing of the NCLEX-RN exam does not automatically make one a US RN, that is only if the state issues a license without a SSN#.

Attending school in any country, including the US, for the practical nurse or enrolled nurse, does not qualify one for a visa to work in the US. There are no legal visas available for this training, and the H2-B that we hear mention of every so often is not actually available for nurses and we are seeing those that came over on that, or attemted to, being deported back home. It is considered immigration fraud and makes one subject to deportation. Only those that hold a green card or US passport, may work with that training in the US. Any visa that is employer-driven requires that one graduate from an approved RN program. And one that is able to grant licensure in the country that you trained in based on the curriculum. Those programs that are not accepted in the training country for licensure, are not accepted here for immigration purposes either, nor are they accepted by CGFNS for the CES as well.

Programs that are completed in other countries except ffor one semester in the US have not met the requirements as of yet for immigration purposes, and there has been a retrogression in place since these programs have started. Since the training is not in the US for at least one full year, then the student also does not qualify for the OPT either.

Hopefully, this will clear up any questions that many of you have been repeatedly posting about. Best of luck to you.

[suzanne4]

CA Licensure as a foreign grad

We do not recommend CA for intial licensure for you for a variety of reasons:
1. No license issued when you pass the exam if you do not hold a SSN#.

2. Not considered a US RN without having license issued.

3. Waiting about a month to get results by snail mail since name will not appear on their website since license not issued.

4. Passing letter is only valid for three years, then your file is destroyed if no SSN# provided to them. With the retrogression in place, most are looking at about a five year wait for one will have to apply for licensure to another state to maintain their NCLEX results.

5. CA is also getting increasingly harder to get an employer who will petition you as well.

[suzanne4]

Local license requirements

If a local license is required by a state here for licensure, then one needs to be provided. Only exception is if one is not permitted to test in the other country. Example, an American training in the Philippines is not legally permitted by law there to write the NLE exam; so this type of instance is exempt from the requirement. However, not wishing to write it is not a valid answer for most states now. And if one has written it but did not pass the exam, then would suggest that they focus on passing it first. We are seeing more and more states going back to this requirement, same as used to be when the CGFNS was required. That same exam still requires the local license.

Why in the world would another employer from another country wish to hire someone that is unable to pass their own local license? Same way that most other countries have this very same requirement as well.

With it a well known fact now that it is going to be years before anyone gets a visa, or a chance at a visa, how does one expect to get experience? We are expecting that the government here may join the requirements that other countries have in place as well and that is actual work experience for more than a year to even be considered for a visa.

Call it another screening tool, but I think that it is very important thing that should be necessary for immigration to the US.