Filipino Nursing Herald

The proposed immigration bill for nurses and physical therapist, or HR 5924, has been reported to be out of the subcommittee level in the US House of Representatives' Judicial Subcommittee. The bill is now up for full Judicial committee voting, likely in August, experts claim.

A new proposed legislation in the US. House of Representatives seeks to give up to 20,000 visas per year to nurses and physical therapists up to September 2011. The proposal, HR 5924 or the Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act, would waive the quota for these two occupations, also known as Schedule A jobs, up to 2011 but a maximum of 20,000 visas can only be approved every year. Immediate family members of primary visa beneficiaries, however, would not be counted against the 20,000 yearly cap. Based on the new proposal, the US immigration department must make a decision on I-140 petitions within 30 days of receipt. Also being proposed is the allocation of a Grant Fee, where beneficiaries of the new visa allocations must pay $1,500 which will go to a fund to help US nursing schools. Visa applicants must also provide legal proof that they do not owe money that was used to finance their education in their home country, such as student loans, for example. Click here to see the full text of...

Since the last push for new Schedule A visa allocations was stymied by US legislators, there's been no news of other similar proposals being pushed forward yet. At least, not that we know of. A lot of things happen in Capitol Hill and it's impossible to keep track of all of them. I guess the general sentiment in the US is that the big immigration issues will be addressed only after the presidential elections in Nov. next year. The issue is mostly focused on what America will do with its large population of undocumented immigrants. The issues affecting people in the employment-based categories like the technology workers, nurses and PTs are collateral damage, so to speak. The US Congress is currently rushing to finish about 10 spending bills or budget bills and just like the last Schedule A visa push, we're all hoping another proposal will be attached to one of these bills. Hopefully another visa proposal will be introduced without restrictive provisions such as the $3,500 a...

The US Senate approved a proposal to attach the Bridge amendment to the Labor Health and Human Services appropriations bill. The amendment would open up as much as 61,000 visas for nurses and their immediate families. This is very good news indeed. There is still a long way to go, but this is a major step forward for all foreign nurses. There is a threat that President Bush might veto this bill if it passes the conference. Bush' displeasure with the bill is not directed against the bridge amendment, instead his attention is focused on other provisions of the bill, particularly with regard to the size of the proposed budget under the bill. Read the full story from Hammond Law's blog .

Over the past week, two amendments were offered in the US Senate that would recapture unused visas for Schedule A applicants, particularly foreign nurses, and their families. Hammond Law Group, in its Web site , said these amendments could be tackled as early as this week. The first amendment seeks to recapture 61,000 unused visa. This amendment is being attached to the Labor Health and Human Services appropriations bill co-sponsored by Sen. Schumer and Sen. Hutchison. The second amendment seeks to recapture visas not just for Schedule A workers and their family members but also for other Employment-based visa applicants. We hope these amendments get approval and their parent bills later being signed into law.

It seems all is quiet in the frontlines of the US immigration struggle. After the failed push to reform US imigration policies earlier this year, talks of new immigration bills have been relegated to the sidelines and talked about in hushed tones. There is simply too much drama associated with immigration in the US that any debate on the matter sets off fireworks. Despite this, we're all hoping proposals to give more freedom for foreign nurses to enter the US would still be moving forward. Advocates for the nurses' cause are expecting things to inch forward by November until early next year. We're hoping Congress will look at this issue more favorably and then let's pray for the US Senate to follow suit. But until then, let's all be patient. Now is the perfect time to get your own papers ready; now is the time to hone your skills and add weight to your stock. So that when the road opens up again, you'll be all set.

Here's one of the best position articles I've read on the issue of nurse migration, particularly about Filipino nurses migrating to the US. Everyone please take time to read this and pass it on if you must. Here's a link to the article written by Joseph Curran: Open Letter to President Carter

Perhaps many of the repeat visitors of this blog have been disappointed over the past few weeks largely due to my failure to post new information on my blog. Please accept my apologies. I suppose all bloggers on the Internet have hit some kind of quiet period once or twice or more in their online careers. These past few weeks have taken much away from my time working on my young blog. I hope you would understand my dear friends. Scanning through some of the Web's pages, I found an interesting link: There's a GMAnews report about 21 Filipino nursing students who staged a protest rally earlier in the day to call for equal rights among Japanese nurses and Filipino nurses who could be deployed in Japan once a treaty between Japan and the Philippines becomes ratified. It was a bit confusing to read this piece of news. The news writer says that the student nurses were against the ratification and yet he failed to say exactly why they were against it. The news source (or the person in...

The U.S. Congress, particularly the House of Representatives has revived the debates on immigration issues in the U.S. through the STRIVE Act. The Subcommittee on Immigration held its hearing on the proposed bill last Sept. 6. I've been trying to find out if anything significant came out from that first hearing, but have found little news so far. It's still too early to tell what will come out of this new effort to put in place a new US immigration law but I'll keep this site updated on news about the proposal when they become available. Some links to stories: Heartbeatnews.com Statesman Journal OC Register

The proposed immigration reform bill is essentially dead, at least for now. Last Thursday's 46-53 vote in the U.S. Senate sent the bill back to the shelves to be re-opened probably not until its biggest supporter, President George Bush, leaves his office next year after the US Presidential elections. Meanwhile, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, announced that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may revise the July visa bulletin and change the status for employment-based visa preferences. The Hammond Law Group, which is a member of the organization, says the government agency might retrogress most if not all of the employment-based visa categories with the revision.

The Associated Press reports that the prognosis for the nursing shortage in the U.S. looks increasingly bleak as America's elderly population grows alarmingly large in the next few decades. Check out the story here . Meanwhile, President Bush continued to urge Senators to work on the proposed immigration reform act. Legislators have agreed to tackle a limited number of amendments starting next week before putting the bill to a final vote.

Michigan will no longer require foreign nurse applicants to pass the certificate exam administered by the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) before they are allowed to take the licensure exam for the state. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm on July 14 signed a new bill that removes the mandatory CGFNS test requirement for nurses educated outside the U.S. In the past, the CGFNS certificate was a pre-requisite for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) for registered nurses. Instead of the CGFNS exam, foreign nurses will simply need to submit their credentials to determine that their education is equivalent to a U.S. nursing course. Filipinos make up majority of all foreign-trained nurses in Michigan, where a shortage of 7,000 nurses is expected by 2010 and 18,000 by 2015, figures from the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth showed. Additional source for this story: Extra nursing test dropped US States that no longer require the CGFNS ex...

After months of deliberating a comprehensive US immigration reform bill, Sen. Edward Kennedy has decided to bring back an old bill from last session that was adopted by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kennedy hopes to make the bill the starting point for discussions on what the new immigration law should be. Although the original bill underwent major changes before getting the nod of the Senate, the bill took on the same principles of having improved border patrol, electronic worker verification, guest worker program, and a path to legalization and citizenship. US legislators have had difficulty trying to come up with a new proposal for a comprehensive immigration reform act that will be filed in the Senate because of the complexity of the issue, which has political, economic and social repercussions in the country. Some Internet reports claim that there is an estimaed 12 million illegal immigrants in the US, and they account for about 5%-7% of the country's work force. The bill al...

A new bill to provide working visas in the US for foreign-born nurses has been recently filed with the US House of Representatives. This new bill, known as the Nursing Relief Act of 2007, seeks to amend the US Immigration and Nationality Act and create a new nonimmigrant visa category for registered nurses. Under this bill, which was filed by Arizona Representative John Shedegg last March 6, seeks to create a Nonimmigrant Category for Nurses. Under this new category, nurses can apply for nonimmigrant status, through a lawful US employer, and be able to work in the US for an initial period of 3 years and which can be extended to a maximum of 6 years. Nurses who avail of this proposed visa category would have the option for permanent residency or adjustment of status filed on their behalf while they are on a nonimmigrant visa. However, this petition must be filed a year or 365 days before their nonimmigrant status expires. The bill also stipulates that aliens already in the US can have t...