*~Question About Retrogression & Foreign Nurses Already In US*~

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I have friends who are here in the US on a work visa, and they're from Canada. Does the retrogression affect people already in the US who are on work visa? Or does it just affect people who are trying to come here?

Also, are there any other countries who have something similar to the US retrogression at this time? Or is it just the US that has it in place.

Thanks

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

If a Canadian citizen then they can if they meet requirements use a TN visa. If foreign and looking for a visa and in the US then they are affected by retrogression, even if on a working visa an trying to change to GC

Europe has a freeze unless you are from one of the EU countries but even then the country is expected to employ own citizen first

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How is it that I've come across nurses from the Philippines who are still coming over here and getting jobs in the SNF as RN ir IP even though there is a retrogression?

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

Unless they are coming over on another type of work visa then it will depend on what their PD is. Nurses are under the EB3 category and currently that is U = unavailable and will not be open again until the new visa year starts in Oct. Even then the dates are expected to start for most country for early 2006. I would ask them what visa they are on and when was their PD

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Unless they applied several years ago and are just getting processed now for the visa, then they are not working on a legal visa.

Impossible for them to get a job with the IP as an American would as that requires that they have passed the CGFNS exam as well as the English exams as a start to be able to get that.

CA is also not issuing a license without the SSN# in hand, and that requires a visa that will permit them to work. They may have gotten the H1-B visa, but those are being investigated now as well by the US government because they were meant to go to specialists, and that is not the case for more than 11% of the H1-B visas.

Unfortunately, many that you are seeing in nursing homes are working illegally and under the table and are getting deported when ICE has their raids. If they came over on a tourist visa, there has been no way to adjust a visa for quite sometime, so this only proves it as well.

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Unless they applied several years ago and are just getting processed now for the visa, then they are not working on a legal visa.

Impossible for them to get a job with the IP as an American would as that requires that they have passed the CGFNS exam as well as the English exams as a start to be able to get that.

CA is also not issuing a license without the SSN# in hand, and that requires a visa that will permit them to work. They may have gotten the H1-B visa, but those are being investigated now as well by the US government because they were meant to go to specialists, and that is not the case for more than 11% of the H1-B visas.

Unfortunately, many that you are seeing in nursing homes are working illegally and under the table and are getting deported when ICE has their raids. If they came over on a tourist visa, there has been no way to adjust a visa for quite sometime, so this only proves it as well.

Suzanne, thanks for the replies, but I also want to add that these nurses haven't practice nursing in their home country. Also, they're about 20 or 21 so I'm assuming that they're recent grads as well. These are the ones that I question their ability and education because I've seen them do things that I wouldn't do and I'm not a nurse yet. But it could be the fact that they're lacking clinical skills. This is the reason why I believe that the US needs to have foreign grads take a skills exam before they issue them a license. Since they were foreign trained, their standards are different than ours.

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If they are only 20-21 or so, chances are that they may not even have a legal visa for the US. Unless they were issued a green card because of their family and already held it, it would be impossible for them to get thru the immigration process on their own at that age.

One cannot even start the process until they have a completed set of transcripts and the BSN takes a full four years in the Philippines.

It is not a point of issuing a skills exam, most countries do not have that, but for the nurse to have the proper orientation when they come here. Unfortunately, many go to nursing homes and they are known for only a three day orientation at best, so the patients suffer. This is why I am so verbal about a new foreign nurse to the US not going to nursing homes as a starting point.

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Part of the process of becoming a licensed US physician is a clinical skills test. You have to perform a physical assessment and complete simple tasks. The process is video taped and evaluated by several evaluators.

I am wondering if this needs to be done for nurses not trained in the US. I know graduates of Excelsior have to pass a clinical test. Just a thought, since this would be a way of verifying nursing basic skill sets such as giving insulin, vital signs, and physical assessment.

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LatinaVNStudentRN2B i dont agree that a foreign nurse undergo skill exam, unless nurses in the us undergo the same. we were not different from each other because we also have a bs in nursing studied 4 yrs, have affiliations in the hospitals in our country just like you guys there, most of us who want to go and work in the us take our nursing licensure exam here before we proceed to take nclex-rn. that means mostly filipino nurses their workin, they have 2 licenses, after you graduate and passed the nclex are you willing to undergo skill exam? newbies of course has lack of skill simply because affiliation is different from the real world even the nclex questions are different when you are actually taking care of a pt. however i somehow agree to suzzene that newbies should go to nursing home instead of hospital, work their for a year or 2.

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Part of the process of becoming a licensed US physician is a clinical skills test. You have to perform a physical assessment and complete simple tasks. The process is video taped and evaluated by several evaluators.

I am wondering if this needs to be done for nurses not trained in the US. I know graduates of Excelsior have to pass a clinical test. Just a thought, since this would be a way of verifying nursing basic skill sets such as giving insulin, vital signs, and physical assessment.

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I believe that Alberta Canada is doing a skills assessment now as well for foreign trained nurses since they are finding the skills of those from the Philippines not up to par with the Canadian nursing standard.

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LatinaVNStudentRN2B i dont agree that a foreign nurse undergo skill exam, unless nurses in the us undergo the same. we were not different from each other because we also have a bs in nursing studied 4 yrs, have affiliations in the hospitals in our country just like you guys there, most of us who want to go and work in the us take our nursing licensure exam here before we proceed to take nclex-rn. that means mostly filipino nurses their workin, they have 2 licenses, after you graduate and passed the nclex are you willing to undergo skill exam? newbies of course has lack of skill simply because affiliation is different from the real world even the nclex questions are different when you are actually taking care of a pt. however i somehow agree to suzzene that newbies should go to nursing home instead of hospital, work their for a year or 2.

That is the OPPOSITE of Suzanne's advice. She is very much against new grads going to the nursing home...I believe she usually states "fastest way to lose a license". Not a good place to get mentors from my experience. I got a job as an LPN and only lasted about a month before realizing they really put me in a horrible situation....a few days of orientation then on my own without an RN in site to ask questions of. I learned quick that I was comfortable to be in such a position of putting my license in jeopardy or my patients for that matter.

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sorry bout that, ive misread it. thanks for correcting. is that really whats happening to nurses in a nursing home? i once worked as a CNA in a nursing home, and your right they just orient you for 3 days and then leave you just like that, but what i experience was totally a racial discrimination. i was the only filipino CNA in that nursing home, however what my batchmate experience in another nursing home was the opposite simply because most of his co workers are filipino thats why they helped each other. regarding the canada has skill assessment thats what UK is also doing my fellow RN workin in the UK undergo 6mos assessment, but in the US its a different thing, we used books that are from the US, even our local board exam here most are NCLEX like questions, some schools even offer nclex review a year before graduation.

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