SKIL Bill & H1-B...

There is really NO answer to give. It doesn't MATTER what any bill in progress looks like, only what the FINAL bill after both the House and Senate reconcile looks like after they compose a final bill for the President to sign.

Up until that point, most bills look like wish lists. Yeah, it would be nice if what you WANT that is in one version makes it into the final version, but the POINT of loading up such bills in either house of Congress it to have wiggle room.

You just can't predict what will be wiggled out of a bill before its final vote.

This is NOT something that will likely be taken up in the current lame duck session of Congress. There are too many items on the wish list and this item is far down the list.

It will have to be taken up when the new Congress meets in January. Even then, budget bills and the Democrats 'First 100 hours' will probably take up all of January. From there, it depends on how much of that 'higher' priority stuff gets bogged down and how tenacious those that advocate for those things are to keep them on the table.

I wouldn't look for a serious attempt to address nursing visas before March. Even then, those bills take a month or more to become reality.

I would add even MORE time to the mix because the immigration bill will be subject to lots of attention and therefore, lots of time bartering for it. Think about it THIS way: both political parties want to make lots of hay from an immigration bill - the only way to do that is to keep it in the media for a considerable amount of time.

So, expect a great deal of wrangling over such a bill and that will equate to lots of time to get it done.

Bottom line, retrogression is probably here to stay for awhile and the provisions for families, etc: impossible to predict.

~faith,
Timothy.

The H1-B visa has not been available for nurses for almost three years, since the green card has been expedited.

To try to do anything without a green card, is plain and utterly insane.

And yes, with the H1-B visa, family members are strictly dependents and do not get visas to work in the US. They are processed as H-4 visa holders, meaning that they can go to school, but not work.