Re: Urge Congress to Support HR 5924: Legislation to Address Nursing Shortage Originally Posted by mitcornsus 
Sorry to point it out, but the exact country you are in, Canada, gives priority (extra points), to the foreign students for immigration purposes. If one study in Canada for two years, he/she get five more points, etc. Quebec has similar immigration policies.
Sorry to say, but the immigration system in US do give international students a lot of advantages (kind of priority) though. Educated in US, have a-year OPT which helps them gain US experience. An obvious example is when immigration visa becomes available, like last JULY visa bulletin chaos, they can file AOS immediately, which gives them advantage of renewable EAD.
Actually students no longer get priority and this has been for two years since the retrogression started and there is no reason for anyone that trained here to be able to get it.
There should have never even been the open window last summer as it was, there were no visas available then. And if you take the time to do the math, you will see that it will be more than five years for all of those from last summer to be able to get a visa, or even have a chance at one. So anyone that is contemplating nursing school here based on that assumption, really needs to think again.
Next issue and one that you are not seeing is the fact that if the new graduate was petitioned last summer, they needed to have taken and passed the NCLEX exam, had a letter from their BON that takes about three to four weeks to get, plus have other requirenments met. Most from last summer did not have this completed and that is why you are seeing so many post that were not even able to get jobs with the OPT in the first place as they would not be able to remain in the US when they were done.
If you are not an American and pay taxes here, then it is really not up to you as to how things should be done here. No one dictates what your country should do.
And there are no other exceptions made to any of the requirements for the student that trained in the US, only thing that gets waived is the English exams.
And looking at it from the other side, if you were the US government; would you prefer a nurse from another country with a solid ten years of work experience behind them or a new grad that just graduated and has no experience behind them? Same thing as an employer?
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