NYrnTX

Question for you : What was your total cost (from your pocket) for coming to US, including EVERYTHING (Exam fee/doc fee/whatever). Wanted to know howmuch agency spend for you How long you are working for this agency in US What proof do u have to clarify that agency is taking 15 % (not more / not less) If you walkout, do you think you can get a new job with your own efforts (contacts/friends) Do you have enough saved (other support/source of income) atleast for 3 months without having a job? Should be considerd before taking any decicion..

My feeling is that, nothing would happen if you just walk out of the contract. Because, Your agency forced to sign the contract You signed the contract when u were in a foriegn country (India, in this case). I am not sure whether U.S courts will uphold foreign contracts. Its not the agency who gave you the green card, it is USCIS. Only USCIS can revoke it. Once your I-140 is approved, employer lost control on your petition. Moslty, agency may make some mails/phone calls threatining you about severe consequences and a law suit. But, it may be foolish for them to file a law suit against you. Because If they do, you may file a counter suit against agency accusing forced immoral contracts. Agency knows that, you may file a complaint against the agency to the Dept of Labour about all these immoral contracts. That will put a blackmark against the company on USCIS records and, mostly, all future I-140 application from the same agency will be turned down. All agencies will do anything to keep their name 'Clean' in DeptOfLabour/USCIS records. Disclaimer : Above was just my opinion on the subject. No legal advise.

As regular visitors of this wondeful forum know, NCSBN has recently announced its decision to open more testing centers in foreign countries. Though its a welcome act by NCSBN to help International nurses to complete NCLEX in their own countries (and to escape them from being at the mercy of pathetic, sub-standard CGFNS), it may be surprising to note that Philii left out. Everyone would agree hands down that Philippines and India are the two countries that deserve NCLEX test centers. Also, since CGFNS exam is offered in both these countries, it may sound cruel that no NCLEX centers are available in Phili. No, it is not that NCSBN has singled out Phili for punishment. As a matter of fact, having experienced the wonderful skills of Philippino nurses, who would dare to single out Phili ? Some might think that its an issue ofs security/fraud. Both India and Phili are more or less the same on these areas. I think Infrastructure is the villain here. To be precise, Infrastructure to conduct NCLEX exam. As we know, NCLEX is not conducted directly by NCSBN. NCSBN contracted PearsonVue to conduct NCLEX exam. Also, not all PearsonVue centers are allowed to conduct NCLEX exam. Only select few. PearsonVuee centres conduct many exams for many vendors. PearsonVue and Prometric are the 'agents' who conduct certification exams for most of the technology giants like Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, HP, IBM etc. Since India has a strong presense of technology (software) professionals, many PearsonVue centres are present in India. They were actually franchised with the tech guys in mind. But, that has become a boon for Indian Nurses now. Hyderabad, Madras, Bangalore and Delhi are the IT hubs in India and henceforth they have many PearsonVue centres in each of these places. Since there are many, it is easier to find atleast one center in each of these cities that meets the toughest standards that are required to conduct NCLEX exam. Also, as discussed in the forum, Kerala, another southeren state in India produces most of the Indian nurses but there is no NCLEX center there. Again, what mentioned above answers that as well. Kerala is not a major IT force in India and henceforth that state may not have (m)any PearsonVue centres to conduct NCLEX exam. Why CGFNS is available in both these countries ? CGFNS is different than NCLEX. CGFNS directly administers that exam and it can conduct that exam anywhere it want to..Hotel, School, Auditorium, Parish Hall, Library, stadium or whatever. All it requires is, some CG officials fly down to the venue. Having said that, I do believe there will be NCLEX centers in Phili in the near future. The moment PearsonVue recognises that NCLEX would be a major business in Phili, many centers will open there too and the exam will be available. Also, since philippino nurses are highly skilled professional nurses, NCSBN may 'invent' some other means to offer the exam there..

as expected, ncsbn has officially announced their decision to open testing centres in india and some other countries. refer www.ncsbn.org for details.

I do not have any experience with any agency, but I would highly recommed Kaplan, since I know it WORKS!! If you are skeptical about the agency, you may just go to kaplan.com, pay the money and take their online streaming video classes. Its worthful. Iknow about 9 people that took Kaplan online course, all except 1 passed in the first attempt. If you pass NCLEX-Exam on your own, you increase your bargaining power with ANY agency. Then the folks at your (any) agency will understand that you know how to play the game and they would come down from their $20K penatly on contract breaking... Also, since CGFNS is no more required in most (any ??) states in USA, if you had not invested any money for CGFNS (Exam fee/Paper work/StudyGuide), divert that money to study NCLEX. If you can afford that much, I would say go for it. consider that as an investment for your future.

I dont think there is any reason to worry about the Listening part of it. In fact, that is one of the section where most people score around '8' and would compensate for the '5' they score in Reading. AFAIK, Reading is the most tricky one. Not because you dont understand english. Just because of the timing restrictions. You have to read a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOng essay to answer the questions and normally you wont get enough time to complete all Qs. Thats the reason people end up with 5 OR 6. (some people advise to read the Questions first and then try to read the essay to answer it). Also, a total score of 6.5 does not mean that you have to get a total of (6.5 * 4 = ) 26 to pass the exam. You can escape with 25. Here is the way it works : Assume that you got a total of 25 (ofcourse, atleast 7 in the speaking part), then 25 divided by 4 will get you 6.25. IELTS cannot give you marks in quarters so they will round up (Yes, round UP) and make it 6.5. CAVEAT : if your total is only 24.5, you'll fail. Because 24.5 / 4 = 6.125 and they round that DOWN to 6. Having said that, I dont advise you to AIM at getting JUST 25. But, it should make you feel more comfortable. From my experience, one should aim at Listening : 8 Reading : 6 Writing : 7 Speaking : 7 =========== 28 This way, you can afford to lose 3 marks 'here and there'. HTH.

first of all, there is nothing to be panic about this since the information below does not have any direct/ immediate effect on rn-immigration. but it has some indirect/later effect on us as well. as many of us know, there was an effort in the u.s govt bodies (senate and house) to provide some relief to the immigration hardships. the bill was named as s.1932 and it included many provisions other than immigration reliefs. immigration reliefs are recapture of 30,000 h1bs recapture of unused employment-based (eb3) immigrant visa numbers (green cards) excluding the family numbers from the visanumber quota, so that family members will not eat-up available visanumbers for a particular category.there were strong moves in u.s for and against these immigration reforms and both parties were campaigning their congressman/senator with mail/fax/email/phone/whatever...unfortunately, it seems the people who are against these immigration reliefs have won the race. yesterday (dec 19), it seems both the house and senate (two bodies of u.s govt) agreed up on removing these immigration relief provisions from the final draft of s.1932 bill. (as per the u.s constitution, president can sign a bill only if both house and senate approves the same version of the bill). what this means is, when president signs this bill there will not be any provision to provide immigration relief. this is an extremely disappointing news for the non-schedulea community. had this bill been approved with the immigration relief provisions, it would have had significant impact on the retrogression they are in right now. for the rn-community, this may not have any immediate impact, because schedulea(where rn belongs) is not retrogressed now and as per the expert attorneys, there are enough visas available for rns (btw, definition of 'enough' depends on whom you ask ). the extra 50k visa president released on may 11 2005, is a special quota which is meant to be used only if no other visa numbers are available. had this immigration reliefs were included in the final bill, rns would have been able to use visanumbers from this general eb quota than the special rn quota, which in turn would have kept this special 50k rn quota from expiring soon. but in immigration, nothing is final. laws change frequently. all we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Yes, its the one year Anniversary of the "doom day" experienced by PIC (Phili,India/China) nurses. Exactly one year before on this date (Dec 9 2004), USCIS published its Jan 2005 VS (VisaBulletin) announcing the "Worst news for RNs from PIC Countries". As per the bulletin, RNs from PIC countires would not be able to submit new GC (AOS/CP) applications until USCIS determines that they have enough visa numbers avaialable to distribute to PIC nurses. Existing application would not be processed until then.. What a sad day it was..Nothing was certain..Nobody knew how long it would take for the USCIS to re-open the gates...Nobody knew how it would gonna affect their life. The thread (https://allnurses.com/forums/f75/worst-news-rns-india-philippines-china-87149.html) which discussed the issue, was extremely active. I still remember some of the events happening at that time.. -- Dale giving his theory/predictions at murthy.com -- kid80 digging deep in to the web and coming back with some positive news. (s)he is the one who first mentioned that, 'something is happening' on the so-called "appropriations bill". - Rep, NimishaVarghese and many many more contributing their info to the community.. Months passed and came May 11 2005, President Bush put his signature on the appropriations bill which had the clause for giving EXTRA 50K visa for Nurses and Families. BOY, what a relief it was....All of a sudden retrogression (for nurses) became a thing of the past and suddenly enough visa numbers were availaable. We've started this thread (https://allnurses.com/forums/f75/best-news-rns-india-philippines-china-104713.html) within minutes President Bush released extra 50K visas for nurses, which was the most active thread in the history of "International nursing" forum. Now when we look back today, it was an eventful year.. --Many of us passed NCLEX/CGFNS in that time period --Many of us have our I 140 approvals --Many of us including Rep,kid80, myself have gotten our greencards --Above all, we all were sharing and learning from this community. For the newbies here, they dont have any retrogression to worry about. (May be, you can just browse thru the threads and see what their 'seniors' experienced) For the regulars, it was a horror time which we could hang on tight and successfully overcome...

superb man! Congrats! Wish all the very best to Mr. Bill Gates Jr. :)

since i've received many emails from members about this topic, here is the latest on this... ncsbn was scheduled to take their decision by mid-october but for some reason, its been postponed to mid-december. stay tuned.

Congratulations!! Good that you are flying only on Wednesday, by that time the after effects of Wilma would be gone, hopefully.

This indeed is great news, but this 90K visas are not 'reserved' for Schedule A. It will be distributed among all EB categories. My understanding is that Schedule A will get a share from this 90K quota as well, because the 50K 'special' for ScheduleA is intended to be used only if a visa number is not available anywhere else.

there were so many anxious questions here about the avaialability of 50,000 new visas alloted for schedule a occupation (nurse/pts).. here is the good news from one of the trusted immigration law firms here in us. their take is, it will be avaialble through out fiscal year 2006. this is the extract from oh law firm (http://www.immigration-law.com/) what about schedule a numbers?the 50,000 schedule a numbers will provide relief to many employment preference applicants, since any schedule a applicant whose priority date is beyond the relevant employment preference cut-off date can be processed and charged against the 50,000 limit. it is expected that schedule a numbers will be available on a “current” basis throughout all of fy-2006 as regulars in this site know, shusterman.com, another highly respected california based law firm has predicted (in last may) that it would be enough for 2-3 years. dos itself mentioned that, this 50 k visa numbers are enough for the foreseable future..

Click this link and it will give you a $5 Target Gift Card and Free Shipping on 2006 Year Book. http://www.entertainment.com/save/home?affiliateID=10370081|1240034&orcustom=&linkName=06AFF_TGT&AID=10370081&PID=1240034 These deals will become more sweeter if you can wait for some more time. Last time they were selling this for $10 around February. Its still a great deal for $10, in February even though 4 months would have already 'expired' by then.

It depends on what you meant by 'affected'. PERM has not affected ScheduleA category in terms of any Cut-off date (PD) for Processing. ScheduleA is 'Current' and application will be processed normally. IOW, No retrogression for ScheduleA PERM has some 'affect' on ScheduleA since it will impose some unwanted extra burden for the employer to get some additional 'requirements' met for filing I-140 and AOS/CP. If your papers are already filed, PERM has not 'affected' you and will not 'affect' you.

If the nurse has a valid visa (on which nurse is allowed to work in USA), then there is no point in applying for a VisaScreen. Please note that there are many visas on which the visa holder is not allowed to work. There are some talks about making the Visascreen mandatory for any foreign nurse from non-english speaking countries, irrespective whether the nurse has valid work permit in U.S or not. But it is not implemented yet. There were some cases, where the husband and wife were nurses and the one who is more good in English complete VS and apply as the 'Primary' applicant so the spouse can 'sneak in' with valid GC, even if the spouse has very minimal English skills. It seems, NCSBN want to avoid that.

we should consider ourself fortunate to have a special visa category available for nurses (schedulea / ex). if not, meaning, if we were the previous eb3 general category, we would have to wait 5-7 years for a visa number. priority date cut-off is established based on the demand vs supply estimate. the general eb3 category is retrogressed to jan 98 / mar 01 / may 00 for people from india/phili/china. the main reason for this huge backlog is perm. read the following extract from murthy.com (originally at http://murthy.com/nflash/nf_091305.html) in gray color for more info. as experts predicted (and mentioned here) before, perm could retrogress the visa number availability for 7 years. thats what happened now. fortunately, nurses are in schedule a category and it is 'current'. since uscis has clearly defined schedulea, others cannot intrude in to this category and eat up our visa numbers. so, as uscis has mentioned and experts attorneys like shusterman predicted, the 50k visa number for nurses should be enough for the foreseeable future. [color=gray]the cutoff dates are based upon estimates of demand for the limited supply of visa numbers. this demand, in turn, is fueled by case filings and processing times at the uscis and the department of labor. the approvals from the department of labor have started to increase, because they are coming from two sources. that is, perm labor certifications are being approved and pre-perm cases in the backlog centers are also being approved. additionally, since eb3 numbers have been unavailable for three months, many of those cases pending with uscis now have approved i-140s and would be eligible for i-485 approval / filing if the visa numbers were available. thus, the dos established cutoff dates so far back. we at the law office of sheela murthy hope and believe that by early 2006 there should be some movement in the dates depending on the usage or demand for visa numbers.

Following is a great site where you can find almost anything needed for a new comer. Though this site is more focussed on indian nationals, you can get a general idea. This is their new comers guide : http://path2usa.com/new_comers/ Also, one more important article is the American Enlgish terminology here : http://path2usa.com/lifestyle/culture/terminology.htm One american word most new comer may get puzzled is 'Rest Room'. It stands for Toilet/Loo Have fun!!

CGFNS used to sent VisaScreen certificate (3 years before ?) without the candidate picture embedded on it. USCIS used to accept those VS then. It seems there was some attempt to fraud and henceforth CGFNS have changed the format and now all VS are coming with a candidate's picture on it. USCIS officers will match the photo (naked eye) that was given as part of the immigration application with the photo on VS. I don't think its neccessary to have the 'same' photo used in VS and immigration. Yours will come with a picture. You are just gonna be fine.

once again, it is clarified, as feared before, that perm is a major hurdle in the immigration journey for rns. till now, we were aware that the delay perm could make for rns was only on pwd from swa and 10 day posting rule. but it seems, thats just the beginning. as mentioned by shusterman in the following extract below in gray color (originally at, http://shusterman.com/siu.html#10) it seems the employer is prohibited to file i 140 for 30 days after getting pwd. meaning another 30 days will go wasted for all future applicants. as mentioned before, perm could be a phenominal thing for all non-schedulea (who require lc), but its definitely gonna harm rns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [color=gray] "even before the bill was signed into law, the labor department's (dol's) perm regulations went into effect. while, in the past, it was acceptable to submit wage surveys for rns issued by dol's bureau of labor statistics' occupational employment statistics, the perm regulations mandate that before submitting an immigration visa petition on behalf of an rn, an employer must obtain a prevailing wage determination from the state workforce agency (swa) in the state of intended employment. this is true even where the prevailing wage is determined by a collective bargaining agreement. in states like california, where the process of obtaining the prevailing wage from the swa can take two months or more, this new requirement imposes a significant delay on employers seeking to immigrate foreign-born nurses. once the prevailing wage is obtained from the swa, and a notice is posted for ten business days, the employer is prohibited from submitting an i-140 visa petition for a minimum of 30 days. perm may expedite the usual labor certification process, but for schedule a occupations, it imposes significant, and in our view, unnecessary delays. this is particularly troublesome given that rns and pts are both classified by the dol as "shortage occupations".

Well written, Dale.

since retrogression is offically lifted and immigration related things are back to normal, "the thread", "best news for rns from " on international nursing is now closed. the thread that i have opened on may 11 2005 within minutes after president bush signed the appropriations bill in to a law and officially sactioning 50k visas for nurses was the most active and participating thread till now. its amazing to look at the numbers, 635 posts and 26k views as of this writing. i never thought, this thread would have been such a great help for all of us here to 'be in the know' with all of us participating from different corners of the world, be it us/uk/india/phili/china/other. thanks a lot guys for sharing your views. lets continue offering helping hand and move on.

Congrats! Nice to learn the CP approvals has started now. Hope everyone would cross the atlantic soon.

Dont think so. There are some talks about cancelling the concurrent adjudication of I 140 and I 485 but they can be applied together (along with EAD and AP)

Rep, I see your point and I agree 100% about the need to conduct NCLEX atleast in Phili and India. But there is a practicability issue there. CGFNS is directly administered by CGFNS where as NCLEX is not directly administered by NCSBN. They Contract PearsonVue to do that. This could be one reason NCSBN will think twice about offering an exam in a foreign country. They want to make sure that exam is conducted without any Fraud. Even here in US, all PearsonVue Centers are not authorized to conduct NCLEX exams. NCSBN have selected very few to do that after careful examination of the centre. To be precise, in Houston, TX there are atleast 20 Pearson Vue centers but only two are authorized to conduct NCLEX exam. Lets hope they find means to conduct NCLEX in more foreign countries in the near future.