Petitioned by a New York Employer

suzanne4, RN · Oct 26, 2008

There are many here that have been petitioned by agencies out of NY; the issue is that there are no visas available and they are also going to need to prove that they have placement for you when the time comes and you get a chance at a visa. If they cannot guarantee placement, then everything will get cancelled.

There have been issues with several of them not having work for the nurses when they got over here and they were told to contact their families to send them money while they were waiting to get started working and this was after they were in NY for three months and already had their documents to work as well as SSN#.

Can you be more specific as to what you are wishing to know?

Nightingale's idol · Oct 26, 2008

Hi. I just wanted to know if anyone in this forum was petitioned by a staffing agency in New York. I wanted to find someone who might have been petitioned with the same employer as mine. For the specific name of the employer, please PM me. thanks

Hello agp_ph

I have a friend working with Natioanal Guard here in Riyadh Saudi Arabia who had been under an agency that is quite popular in deploying nurses for the state of New York. As what I have learned, this agency had stopped recruiting foreign nurses for the time being due to the prolonged nature of retrogression.

As for my friend, She just departed to NY last September. She had her interview last June in Riyadh US embassy. Everything worked out well for her..getting the appointment letter on time, and having an updated job offer just few days prior to her interview. She is now well settled in Brooklyn, happily working with one of the well established Hospital there. She admitted that e-crisis is heavily being felt by the community, but her agency, and hospital welcomes her well, and provided her with some immediate needs.

I Hope you belong to same agency as my friend does, then everything would be fine Godwilling.:nuke:

Godbless and Goodluck to you.

PD

Aug2005

agp_ph · Oct 26, 2008

Hello agp_ph
I have a friend working with Natioanal Guard here in Riyadh Saudi Arabia who had been under an agency that is quite popular in deploying nurses for the state of New York. As what I have learned, this agency had stopped recruiting foreign nurses for the time being due to the prolonged nature of retrogression.
As for my friend, She just departed to NY last September. She had her interview last June in Riyadh US embassy. Everything worked out well for her..getting the appointment letter on time, and having an updated job offer just few days prior to her interview. She is now well settled in Brooklyn, happily working with one of the well established Hospital there. She admitted that e-crisis is heavily being felt by the community, but her agency, and hospital welcomes her well, and provided her with some immediate needs.
I Hope you belong to same agency as my friend does, then everything would be fine Godwilling.:nuke:
Godbless and Goodluck to you.
PD
Aug2005

Hi Nightingale's Idol, yes I am under the agency you mentioned on your PM. And I do hope that when the time our PD becomes current they will have a placement for us. I have searched job openings in the internet and there are a couple of job openings/placements under this agency which are recently posted so I guess everything will be fine.

They have also called me a couple of times to check how I am doing. I think they do this to all their nuirses waiting for their visas.

agp_ph · Oct 26, 2008

Hi Nightingale's idol, tried to send a reply to your second PM but your store private messages is full so it cannot get through

dhel28 · Oct 26, 2008

Hi. I just wanted to know if anyone in this forum was petitioned by a staffing agency in New York. I wanted to find someone who might have been petitioned with the same employer as mine. For the specific name of the employer, please PM me. thanks

I just hope your not with the same agency in NY where my wife work. Yes, their very competent on providing documentation to support your petition but boy it was HELL during my wife first 6 months with them. :madface:

agp_ph · Oct 27, 2008

I just hope your not with the same agency in NY where my wife work. Yes, their very competent on providing documentation to support your petition but boy it was HELL during my wife first 6 months with them.

Hi dhel28, could you PM me which agency? and what the problem was?

bebotwaiting · Oct 27, 2008

hi agp_ph.. im also under some new york agency..

I am wondering what the name of your agency is and if there are problems? could you pm me?

suzanne4, RN · Oct 27, 2008

If you take the time to do a search, you will find several of the agencies mentioned over and over again. There were issues with housing first of all, with 8 people being placed in a four bedroom apt that had only two bathrooms; or 8 men being placed in a studio apt with only one bathroom and expected to sleep on the floor in their own divided section as one.

Then no work for several months when the agency actually guaranteed to the US government that they would have full-time work for them when they arrived here. And with work documents in place as well as a SSN# in hand and no work after waiting for more than three months. Quite a few were asked to contact their families back home to send them money to live on.

These are a few of the major issues that happened.

agp_ph · Oct 28, 2008

Housing is just a temporary issue and should not be a big problem. Besides, I don't intend to stay in my employer's housing when I arrive because I will be bringing my husband and daughter. So that is not really a problem. As for work, I don't intend to start work immediately when I arrive. Infact I intend to ask the employer to give me a a month before I start work so I can still visit friends and relatives if the employer can wait. It is also in our contract that there could be a brief period between arriving to the US and starting work to allow for us to finish some trainings and get certifications like CPR and to allow us to get ourselves settled before starting work. The employer did not promise work immediately upon arrival. In fact they would not tell me now what facility I will be working since they have to wait for NVC to give me an interview sched so they can estimate when I will be able to start work and which facility will be needing nurses when the time comes.

The reason I started this thread is to find out if somebody here has the same employer so we may compare PD and status of our cases and who knows we might be on the same airplane going to the U.S. when our time comes. To other nurses, don't be discouraged by reports of poor housing as this is only temporary. Remember...this is free housing. If you stayed in a dormitory during your college days, then you should be used to having a lot of people in one room and bathroom so this should not really be an issue for you. You can find a place of your own if you don't like their housing arrangements specially if you are bringing your family. You have to think about your future not just the few months of arrival. Expect your first few months in the US to be difficult as this is a time for adjustment. No pain, no gain...

Silverdragon102, BSN · Oct 28, 2008

We have seen a few international students train in NY struggle to find employer for OPT never mind a petitioner for GC many have had to move states just to use their OPT. If you have a employer for NY then you are lucky as many others haven't been and they trained at the hospitals

suzanne4, RN · Oct 28, 2008

Housing is just a temporary issue and should not be a big problem. Besides, I don't intend to stay in my employer's housing when I arrive because I will be bringing my husband and daughter. So that is not really a problem. As for work, I don't intend to start work immediately when I arrive. Infact I intend to ask the employer to give me a a month before I start work so I can still visit friends and relatives if the employer can wait. It is also in our contract that there could be a brief period between arriving to the US and starting work to allow for us to finish some trainings and get certifications like CPR and to allow us to get ourselves settled before starting work. The employer did not promise work immediately upon arrival. In fact they would not tell me now what facility I will be working since they have to wait for NVC to give me an interview sched so they can estimate when I will be able to start work and which facility will be needing nurses when the time comes.
The reason I started this thread is to find out if somebody here has the same employer so we may compare PD and status of our cases and who knows we might be on the same airplane going to the U.S. when our time comes. To other nurses, don't be discouraged by reports of poor housing as this is only temporary. Remember...this is free housing. If you stayed in a dormitory during your college days, then you should be used to having a lot of people in one room and bathroom so this should not really be an issue for you. You can find a place of your own if you don't like their housing arrangements specially if you are bringing your family. You have to think about your future not just the few months of arrival. Expect your first few months in the US to be difficult as this is a time for adjustment. No pain, no gain...

You are welcome to your thoughts but what you are not understanding is that we have seen quite a few here that did not have work even after three months and were told to contact their families to send them money. This is what actually caused a large crackdown and investigation into practices of some of these so-called wonderful agencies.

And housing is a big issue, more than you realise. Housing in NY is quite expensive as a start, upwards in the realm of $1800 to $2000 per month in many locales; and without excellent credit in the US it is going to be hard to get a lease in something that you would even consider living in as well. And once again, the agency needs to prove that they are going to have work for you as well as guarantee it in writing to the US government. Knowing that there are many new graduates that are having issues finding work, it is going to be hard for any agency to prove that they were unable to find an American for the job.

Things are very bad here and are going to be going to much worse before they have any chance of getting better. And with many losing their jobs, there is not going to be the same money available for health care so the census is going to go down as well.

You need to be coming with very wide open eyes, not thinking that everything is going to be okay as soon as you get here. No one starts work immediately, you have to apply for the SSN# when you arrive here, but getting the BLS and ACLS training, those are never a delay as they are offered all of the time all over the place. It is up to your agency to prove that they have work for you as soon as you are documented to begin work. The brief period that is in your contract is usually two weeks and not a month. These are things that need to be discussed before you would come to the US and not after you arrive; or things could be done that you were not expecting. Everything must be in writing, verbal from your agency does not mean a thing.

Best of luck to you.