Immigration Surge in US "2.5 millions apps in July/Aug alone"

RNGrad2006 · Nov 24, 2007

"Because of annual limits on all green cards, immigrants from some countries like Mexico and the Philippines often have to wait decades for visas to become available."

10 years waiting?

Stunning article on just how bad the immigration screw up in the USA is today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/us/23immig.html

I am not sure why the article refers to those coming from the Philippines having to wait decades for green cards unless they are referring to the family category. The visa bulletin consistently has PD for worldwide (with a lot of countries lumped together) and the Philippines with the same PD for processing green cards. But there must be more applications coming from the Philippines at least for nursing. That has always puzzled me.

Lorodz · Dec 2, 2007

this is just so sad. with the numbers of nursing graduates surging here and the usa government kicking the brakes, what would happen to us? goodluck!

suzanne4, RN · Dec 2, 2007

It is not a screw-up, and should not be considered as such but the fact that there are many that wish to work in the US.

For those from the Philippines and China, as example:

There are less than 10,000 green cards issued per year to those under the EB-3 cateogory and that is the maximum number for any country. This includes not just nurses, but all others that are under the same category such as those that came to the US under the H1-B in the IT field, they are still under the same classification when applying for the green card and another reason for so many petitions being submitted this past summer.

And then add in the dependents of each of these applicants if they are married and/or have children. They get added into to that total number of visas for those from one country.

And then add in the fact that there are many more nurses being trained in PI then there are jobs available for them and that means more applicants for the US so chances of anyone getting a visa becomes greatly decreased. This is not a problem with the US, but the problems more on the other side of the equation.

And add into this that the US is not as short of nurses as is being marketed around the world be various agencies, it just is not like that all over. Sure there are areas that have a shortage, but that is because Americans do not want to work in those areas in many cases. And if an American does not think that the area is safe, there is no reason that the area will be safer for you to be working there. This is something that I keep repeating as it bears making more aware of it.

My suggestion would be to get experience in another country if you do not already have a couple of years in. Expect the US to start to require two years or so of experience in the near future just like many other countries already do.

Best of luck on whatever you decide to do.

rkm · Dec 2, 2007

That means no nurse from the PI is leaving for the USA anytime soon, like the next five years. And by that time, the US would have enough nurses it needs.

RNGrad2006 · Dec 2, 2007

That means no nurse from the PI is leaving for the USA anytime soon, like the next five years. And by that time, the US would have enough nurses it needs.

It doesnt look good right now. But I would highly doubt that the shortage will disappear in 5 years. The hospital where I work (which is a great place to work by the way), has an incredibly high turn over (at least on our floor). I have only been employed for just over a year and people seem to leave to find higher paying jobs after a year. We have had a lot of people leave in the last few months. It seems that our hospital hires more new grads than most but as soon as people have a years experience they leave. The hospital has an affiliation with a local university and an accelerated nursing program but the grads seem to all have no trouble finding jobs...I would think most have jobs by the time they are done. With the nurse extern program that a lot of hospitals have going the jobs are pretty much guaranteed once they finish. I wouldn't worry about the US not needing nurses. In certain states maybe but there are also many other countries with nursing shortages and with the current strong Canadian dollar and strong economy the US may not be attracting as many Canadian nurses either opening up more slots for others.

Amiel · Dec 3, 2007

May I know what hospital are you working with and your location please.

Amiel

suzanne4, RN · Dec 3, 2007

The issue is that there are no visas available right now for anyone. And with the current retrogression there is not much of a chance of most hospitals willing to start the processing without knowing when the nurse will be able to start there.

This past summer there was a flood of petitions submitted for those that were in the US under another type of visa for the green card and that is another reason for no visas for sometime; there is a limit of 140,000 green cards per year total for the entire world for those under the EB-3 catogory.

You still see mention of hospitals hiring but that is for those that are under the Nafta TN Visa and that requires citizenship in either Mexico or Canada to be able to get that.

There is also a difference when the nurse trained in the US and was under the OPT for a year. Training out of the US has been harder for sometime to get a visa. And this is what is happening right now.

The above poster trained in the US, and was able to get her petitions submitted during this open window in July/August. We do not expect that to open up for at least two years at the earliest, and even expect it to be longer.