Work Visa for Foreign Nurses: Is there such a thing?

If you are a student, I believe a student visa is sufficient, but I don't know about the work visas.

Moved to the International forum.

If Canadian citizen you have an advantage as you can use TN visa and work. Foreign nurses working at the bed side nurses can only get GC and that is affected by retrogression.

I wonder why don't they allow nurses to get working visas now. I understand that while there were easy-to-get green cards before retrogression crisis and cancellation of Schedule A, that was a solution for so-called nursing shortage, but since it's all gone now, why not introduce working visas? Why are they so stuck up that nurses MUST come in ONLY with green cards? What's wrong with good ol' working visa? Cause what happened now is that U.S. went from "Nurses, everyone, get on board!!!" to "Nurses: go away!!! we won't let you in for anything!!!". Makes no sense at all.

Just a rant.

Don't say there's no working visa for nurses b'coz there is, it's H1C , other nurses qualify for H1B if the petitioner requires bachelors degree for the job that they need.

I wonder why don't they allow nurses to get working visas now. I understand that while there were easy-to-get green cards before retrogression crisis and cancellation of Schedule A, that was a solution for so-called nursing shortage, but since it's all gone now, why not introduce working visas? Why are they so stuck up that nurses MUST come in ONLY with green cards? What's wrong with good ol' working visa? Cause what happened now is that U.S. went from "Nurses, everyone, get on board!!!" to "Nurses: go away!!! we won't let you in for anything!!!". Makes no sense at all.

Just a rant.

H1-C visas are only available thru about 15 hospitals in the entire US, so it is not all over. Add into that the fact the H1-C visas are set to expire totally in the next couple of years and we do not know if they will be renewed past their time of demise as they call it.

Hospitals have not petitioned under the H1-B in more than three years due to the paperwork involved with them, and again, the fact that the unions do not permit it. Most university based hospitals have very strong unions, and we have not seen any get approved either in these past few yearsa.

Just attorneys that get more money in their pockets.

Do these unions only defend hospitals jobs, or hospices too? Cause as I get it American nurses don't want to work in hospices, so what would be the harm if H1B visas (at least) only allowed foreign nurses to work in hospices - that way there'd be no threat to American nurses.

There are many Americans that wish to work in hospice, not sure where you are getting your information from. The bigger issue is that there are only 65,000 H1-B visas issued each 6 months and there is only an open window of about two to three hours to get the petition submitted. They are averaging over 150,000 petitions in just a couple of hours being submitted. Hospices are usually privately owned and do not have the resources to pay additional staff to handle the paperwork involved as well that needs to be submitted all of the time to the government. A hospice job is not exempt from being counted under this quota either.

And most hospice jobs do not require the BSN, and that is a requirement for the H1-B visa as well.

Oh, I didn't know that, about few hours windows and such. Interesting... and kind of disturbing. As for hospices work, I just came from an impression given by reading this forum for many years. Also, when I was calling hospitals and hospices looking for a job, it seemed like hospices were a lot more hungry to hire any nurse, even international with no experience like me, while hospitals were like ... "well, submit your appication and maybe... maybe... *yawn* we'll look at it". Just an impression... :)

Work Visa for Australians... Pls help and clarify...

I heard that E-3 visa is what Australians use (similar to TN visa in Canada & Mexico) to work in the US.

Currently we are in the process of waiting for USCIS petition, we signed a contract last month, January 2008, to work for an agency in the US under I-140 petition.

Due to retrogression. They cannot guarantee how long the processing will take. They said, it may take more than a year or a few years. Now we felt we're going nowhere.

I just want to ask if we can cancel with this Agency, and just fly to the US on E-3 visa with another employer (direct hiring - Hospital), and have our papers fixed over there, from working visa and unto green card.

We are desperate for some answers, please help anyone!!!