lost_stranger

you cannot use your approved i-140 for another employer, it was specific to your present one. but you can retain your pd for the next approved petition. once an i-140 is approved, you get to keep the pd for any subsequent i-140 petitions. i have come across many nurses on cp on this forum and other web-sites who have done this. the law is the same for aos and cp applicants.

By all means do carry on spreading the message. I just found it strange, that the thread discussing the next visa bulletin did not have a single member who's actually waiting for his/her PDs to go current.

When a set of posters pass negative comments against all the nurses from a particular country and malign the nation's entire nursing education system then I really don't see how it could lead to a positive discussion or debate. I have seen lot of posts on ths forum where all foreign nurses are grouped together into a single entity and negatively characterised. There is no point in debating a prejudiced mindset. With reference to the example you provided, I believe you are comparing 2 totally dissimilar situations. In the case of the ABC sitcom, an unsolicited disparaging comment was made against all Filipino doctors. If it was a joke then it was in bad taste. Criticism of an individual based on his / her actions may or may not be fair but prejudiced generalization of a group of people or an entire nation is definitely wrong. I have been a member of this forum for about 2 years now and from my experience I can definitely say that this forum has become hostile towards foreign nurses. This thread is proof enough of how most of us feel. The foreign nurses on this forum are from various countries and all the ones who are complaining on this thread do not belong to a single country or culture so the argument that its our culture which makes us more sensitive to 'blunt' comments does not hold water either. I know that the moderators or administrators can't review each and every post but I guess it maybe possible for them to see that the threads remain true to the intent of the OP and that the threads are not hijacked by certain posters even if the moderator agrees with what they are saying.

Over the years this forum has been very helpful to foreign nurses. I have seen the moderators try to answer each and every query posted by new foreign nurses. They go to great lengths to repeat certain information for the benefit of the first time posters. Having said this, I would like to say that there are a group of posters who have their own agenda on this forum, any discussion on immigration or retrogression ends up turning into a diatribe against foreign nurses, where negative generalized comments are made against foreign nurses belonging to certain countries. It seems that anyone can pass comments against the nursing education system and quailty of nurses of a certain country and the only justification that need be provided is "this is what I see here". The underlying message from these posters to foreign nurses seems to be 'you are unqualified, incompetent, inexperienced cheap labour and we dont need you here but I am saying this because I care for you". To the ones who say, that this is not exactly racism or gender or sex bias, I just have to say that unfair discrimination in any form should be discouraged, it need not fit any recognised 'isms'.

http://www.reason.com/images/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg I came across this on www.reason.com A must read for everyone planning to immigrate to US legally. :chuckle

Oh yes, even I have come across this contradiction. Hiring foreign nurses is cheaper or more expensive depending on how the poster wants to put the point across that foreign nurses are a strict no no. The arguement reads like this: Hiring foreign nurses are definitely much more expensive than recruiting American nurses due to the high processing fees and since salaries have to be at the same level as of an American nurse, hence it is cheaper to recruit American nurses Then why do American hospitals try to recruit foreign nurses in such huge numbers? a demand which is only hampered right now by retrogression. Of course there is no shortage of nurses, so thats not the reason. The reason's simple, American hospitals hire foreign nurses because it is more cost-effective for them to import cheap labour who will work for low salaries.

You seem to believe that limiting the number of applicants from particular countries will imporve the quality of candidates applying. The eligibility crtieria for a visa is determined by the country issuing the visas. If certain countries are producing 'zillion' of new grads without any skills, does that mean US has to hire them? no. Only the candidates who have completed all eligibility formalities like exams and certifications are eligible for the job and the visa. If the current policy does not require the nurses to have any experience for the job, then its for US to change the rules if it is found necessary. As far as the recruiters and bodyshoppers are concerned, they will recruite people from anywhere in the world to maintain their profit margins and not necessarily look out for 'the best of the world' once the country quotas are in place. Yes I am from a country with a population over 1 billion and there are more visa applicants from here than most coutries in the world, but does that mean that I have to queue up for years while other applicants scoot through years ahead of me, not because they are more qualified or more experienced or in any way better suited than me to look after the best interests of the patients, but only because they are from countries with fewer visa applicants? The per country quotas are an unfair system discriminating between applicants based only on their country of origin and nothng else. Imagine such a system insituted in your work place. Of course while formulating immigration policies, a nation need only take into account the best interests of its citizens and need not be fair to anyone else. I apologise again for going off the original topic. Please PM for further discussions on this.

Why 10? Retrogression is not directly proportional to recession. Say the economic crisis worsens further, does it mean that the years of retrogression will move to 20? If anything, recession should have the opposite effect with reduction in the number of employers willing to sponsor GC aspirants.

I am not a big fan of the per country quota system actually, The visas were provided to allow foreign RNs and PTs to relieve the severe shortage in US i.e. for the benefit of American patients and not to provide equal career oppurtunities to nurses from each and every country. If Philippines had more number of qualified applicants when visas came out last time, there was no reason to hold them back as the whole point was to bring in qualified workers immediately to relieve the nursing shortage crisis. Sorry for going off the topic. As far as the significance of this notification from USCIS is concerned, I think any action taken on this will affect only the processing times of Sch A I-140 applications and as long as there are no visas available I dont see much value in this. The point to note here is that CIS has gone out of its way to issue a notification recognising the shortage of nurses and recommending USCIS to do whatever is in its power to streamline the immigration process for nurses. Hope the ones in power take note.

Thanks for pointing it out. Direct from the horse's mouth, info is neither from immigration attorney web-sites nor from postings of nurses working in US. Facts are provided by USCIS with relevant sources and numbers. Can't get more unbiased than this.

You have got your facts wrong Retrogression is a backlog due to a difference in the number of visa applicants and available visa numbers for each year and also because of the number of visas wasted each year by the USCIS. DOL still has RN classified as a shortage occupation and petitions still will be approved under ths. US has fixed limit on visas to enter and work and that's what's causing the retrogression in the first place. It is not possible for anyone right now to come to US as tourists and stay back to work as nurses, atleast legally. Jobs should go to US citizens always, even when there's no recession or retrogression, only the job vacancies for which there are a shortage of Americans workers are available to foreign workers. Retrogression affects only legal permanent immig. applicants who know very well that US has limited visas and no open border.

The message that Philippines should improve its standards of nursing education so that the quality of foreign nurses applying to US improves seems highly presumptuous to me. While many members here seem to have strong opinions about who should be eligible to become a nurse in US, the US has well established standards for foreign nurses applying to work. If the present criterion is unsatisfactory, then changes need to be made at that end. The truth remains that the present lull in the number of foreign nurses coming to US is not due to the worsening quality of foreign nurses but is due to a backlog of visa applicants. The Visa Bulletins show that at the present rate anyone applying now for a visa would have to wait for years and it will be definitly prudent for a new applicant to accept this worst case scenario while planning for the future, yet not even an immigration expert can authoritatively say that it will take 5 years or 7 years for a foreign nurse to get to US. There has been changes in the past and there might be in the future. Retrogression is an issue that affects all employment based GC applicants and not only nurses.

How is this related to retrogression?

Thank you for all your concerns. Its still going on. Actually some claim to have heard some firing outside our buiding few minutes ago and news is that V.T. station is under attack again. Dont know whether its just rumours, hoping for the best.

Aug-Sept 05 for Phil and ROW and Dec 01 for India, that's my guess.