Tourist visa or Immigrant visa????

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:confused:Yo,wazzup. I am registered nurse, paassed the nclex last June 10,2008. and I am going to take my IELTS this Sept. 27, 2008. I have 1 year experience at the hospital.

I am confused and dont know what first step I will take. My aunt(which is a nurse in California) is presenting me with options. There is the tourist visa, in which you can go to US visiting relatives and secretly apply in a hospital there and hope for a petition OR go the long and sure way, which is applying for immigrant visa.

Can anybody give me some advice?

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help me pls.

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hi! i suggest you take the long process but the surest and safest way. don't gamble your license, it's not worth it. God bless you.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

You are affected by retrogression and can not adjust your visa to a work visa if you go to the US on your tourist visa. If you haven't already got a tourist visa then you could find it hard as the US is stamping down on people abusing it. You are looking at a few years waiting for a visa for the US due to retrogression so would suggest a good read in this forum on it. Also what was once done can not be done and when there are many nurses including Philippine nurses already in the queue then doing what your Aunt suggests is not fair

I have moved it to the International forum

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Your auntie is giving you very bad advice which could cause you to be deported from the US.

To even think of doing something secretly as you call it is not something that you want to be doing. It really does not matter if you find an employer to hire you but the fact that there are no visas for you to adjust to. And attempting to work without a visa that will permit it will make you subject to being deported for a period of up to ten years. And with a stay in immigration detention which is essentially a jail as well.

The petitioning process is going to take about five years at the minimum for a chance at a green card, and you are not going to be able to remain in the US legally and wait for it.

You also do not have a license issued if you do not have a SSN# and you will not get the SSN# until you have made it thru the immigration process and are ready to begin work legally here.

Suggest that you take the time to do some reading here as the only visa that is available for you is the immigrant visa and the US is under a retrogression at this time. Please do not do anything that you will regret later on. And this is one time when family does not know best.

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To the OP

while you may be able to get into the country with a tourist visa, you wont get a social security number with a tourist visa cuz tourists don't work, it's even hard for students on F-1 visas to get that these days. And for a hospital to hire you, you have to prove you're legally allowed to work. There are only 3 options on that form and one is either a US citizen, permanent resident or legal alien with permission to work and if you choose the last one, you must provide your work authorization id.

it's gonna be hard to find a hospital to petition you. With the current nursing glut on the east coast, some of my friends are moving to the west and you've got to think why would a hospital spend money to hire someone outside the country when they can find someone here.

In the name of being legal, i suggest you through this the right way. i mean you can't work if you come here on a tourist visa and you don't wanna overstay your visa. its just gonna make it harder for you to come back into the country. if you want to come stay here for a couple of months and blow of steam, that's fine but don't think of doing anything illegal while on the tourist visa.

maybe look for an h1-c visa or something but might be hard to get hired on those, most hospitals aren't doing that, very few are and that visa has its cons.

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There are qualified RN graduates from this country who are having a hard time finding jobs as a nurse here. What makes you think that you're going to be hired as a nurse when there are graudates here who can't even find a job? The hospitals usually hire within and then the rest of the new grads have to fight for the left over positions. The rest from that batch usually go to the nursing homes etc etc. But you do have one years experience and that might get you something once you have legal status here. good Luck

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There are qualified RN graduates from this country who are having a hard time finding jobs as a nurse here. What makes you think that you're going to be hired as a nurse when there are graudates here who can't even find a job? The hospitals usually hire within and then the rest of the new grads have to fight for the left over positions. The rest from that batch usually go to the nursing homes etc etc. But you do have one years experience and that might get you something once you have legal status here. good Luck

There is no mention of them having one year of experience, just that they passed the NCLEX in June. Chances are that there is no actual work experience since one now has to do a training program there first, and that takes months to get, when they can.

One must get hired before they can even start the immigration process and that is currently going to be more than five years with the way that things are now.

(just wanted to clear this up for you):nurse:

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Yes, in her original post she stated that she had one year hospital experience. Granted it didn't say what kind of hospital experience, RN experience, janitor experience, food services experience, she didn't say.

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Usually it is as a volunteer or in a training program and that does not count as work experience here, only if it is a paid experience does it count.

They do not have full responsibility for the patient and this is what is needed for it to count as well.

But the issue still comes down to the fact that there are no visas available and she is going to need to return home. We are also expecting to see facilities in CA start to cancel contracts that were signed in the past because of the lay-offs that have started in some facilities and new American grads not being able to get hired or find jobs. The requirement for a visa is that the job is offered first to an American first before they can even be approval for the job offer. And it is going to be harder for administrators to prove that they could not find an American and that they had to spend over $10,000 to attract a foreign nurse to fill the job.

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hi! i have heard of people going to the states using a tourist visa to look for an employer and they end up working legally after a few months because they were able to obtain either a work permit or a working visa. these people i know of don't even have any work experience in the philippines but ended up finding jobs and working legally in the states.

i know someone who is in the states right now (tourist visa) and she was able to sign a contract with a hospital. however, the hospital's lawyer told her to come back here to the philippines because the congress is currently not issuing work permits until the end of the elections.

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

Would doubt the truthfulness of this situation because many US nurses are being laid off - hospitals must FIRST offer to US citizens. Sorry, but the long way is the right way.

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