Priority Dates??

Silverdragon102, BSN · Oct 24, 2007

I am new to all of this Visa stuff. I've had my head burried in NCLEX books since the beggining of the year.
The Visa bulletin states that no one is getting issued a Visa with a priority date after Aug 2002.
How come I have read posts on this forum of people who have, say, a PD in summer 2004 and got thier Visa Winter 2005?? How come for all of the time I have been on agency websites they have (and still do) state that Visas will come through in 12-18 months?
How long is it really taking actual people? Is there anyone here waiting since 2002? Does all this mean it will take 5 years to get one?
I haven't even started the process yet and my prospective agency is waiting for congress or something. Should I just give up now? 2 years seems long enough let alone 5.

Up until Oct 06 nurses were getting visas a lot faster and average time was 12-18 months. Since Oct 06 very few nurses have received green cards and those that have have been lucky. From beginning of the year nurses reverted back under the generally heading EB3 which covers a lot of other professions. As it stands you will not get a visa in 12-18 months as no one knows when retrogression will lift for nurses. The first part of the process I140 is not under retrogression but once that is approved then you are affected by retrogession and to add to the mix depends on which service centre your file (I140) is sent to as approval can take anything from 6 months upwards. PD is the date your I140 was filed and mine was Aug 06 and no idea when I will be fortunate to get visa. Visas are also decided on where you was born, higher the demand from the country of birth the longer it will take you to get a visa

RNGrad2006 · Oct 24, 2007

I am new to all of this Visa stuff. I've had my head burried in NCLEX books since the beggining of the year.
The Visa bulletin states that no one is getting issued a Visa with a priority date after Aug 2002.
How come I have read posts on this forum of people who have, say, a PD in summer 2004 and got thier Visa Winter 2005?? How come for all of the time I have been on agency websites they have (and still do) state that Visas will come through in 12-18 months?
How long is it really taking actual people? Is there anyone here waiting since 2002? Does all this mean it will take 5 years to get one?
I haven't even started the process yet and my prospective agency is waiting for congress or something. Should I just give up now? 2 years seems long enough let alone 5.

It doesn't necessarily mean that it will take 5 years. Basically means there are no visas available period. If you haven't started the process yet it might be a long wait since the surge of applications that just ocurred in July 2007 but don't give up. There are many unknowns right now. I have read many posts on allnurses that state that anyone with a PD prior to August 2002 should have had their visa already and that there is something wrong with their application if they are still waiting. I think the information from agencies is incredibly unreliable. Until January of 2007 there was schedule A and nurses typically did get their green cards in the timeframe mentioned but since retrogression started almost a year ago (Oct 31, 2006) that has changed a lot. The source of information you should be looking at only is the Visa Bulletin. Agencies can claim whatever they want but essentially it is up to the US government. But there is an amendment that is being discussed right now that may be good for both foreign and potential US nurses if it passes since it has a training fee attached to it to help fund more training programs for US citizens.