from a US tourist visa to working visa faster??

starbin, BSN, RN · Jan 24, 2008

At the moment, there are no fast tracks for visa. Who knows what will happen in the future. Keep visiting allnurses.com, you will find out as soon as such track becomes available. Good luck.:balloons:

Being a Phil. nursing student, my friends are advicing me that the fastest way to go/work in US is to be a RN in the Phil, pass the NCLEX, a little experience, get a US tourist visa, go to US, look for a job as a walkin applicant, if lucky someone hires me and is willing to process my working visa, then i go back home and wait for my working visa.
They said that its faster to get a work in US when you are applying in US rather than applying from outside the US.
Is it true? Comments please...

suzanne4, RN · Jan 24, 2008

The US does not offer working visas for nurses, the only one that is available for you is the green card. And with the current retrogression in place, you are looking at five years for even a chance at a green card. And I mean chance, since there are so many enrolled in nursing schools in your country, the chance of getting a visa becomes even slimmer.

It is not any faster in getting petitioned if you apply from the outside vs applying directly in person in the US. Employers still must submit you thru the immigration process and that is where the problems are.

And it is going to get harder to find an employer when you are looking at five years for a chance at a visa. We have had a retrogression in place for about fifteen months at this point and who knows what will be happening by the time that you actually graduate. You need the NLE to be able to get experience in your country, or most other countries. And add in the time that you need to get processed for licensure in the US before you can even write the NCLEX exam, and that time gets added to what we are calling the five year wait as you cannot start the petitioning process without having passed the NCLEX exam first.

We are recommending that you go for experience in another country as you will find it hard in most cases to get a paying job in your country, and the training/volunteer positions do not count as work experience here.

Best of luck to you.