New Visa Process for Foreign Nurses May Affect Hospitals
A change in the way the U.S. government handles certain visa applications will likely discourage foreign nurses from coming to the United States, exacerbating a nursing shortage felt across the nation, particularly in California, hospital officials and immigration advocates say.
The change means that a foreign nurse seeking work in the U.S. would have to wait more than three years to get a permanent residency card. That's at least a year longer than it took in the past.
The directive, which took effect in January, affects primarily nurses from the Philippines -- the main source of overseas nurses for U.S. hospitals -- as well as China and India. Some other skilled and professional workers are also affected.
"Every avenue of adding nurses to the workforce that is cut off from California will make the shortage more acute," said Claudia Rosenfeld, vice president of human resources for the Hospital Assn. of Southern California. "And of all the states, California will be the most adversely impacted because we absorb the majority of these nurses."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited the nursing shortage last year when he issued an emergency order suspending a law requiring one nurse for every five patients at California hospitals.
The governor's order would have imposed a 1-to-6 ratio, but on Friday, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled that Schwarzenegger had no authority to suspend the law.
In the past, a U.S. hospital could petition on behalf of foreign nurses, who would apply for immigrant visas in their home countries. If they were approved, each would get a green card upon arrival in the U.S. The process typically took 18 to 24 months.
For qualified nurses already in the U.S. and sponsored by a hospital, the procedure was faster. They could get temporary work permits while waiting for green cards to be approved. The initial permit was usually issued in 60 to 90 days, said Los Angeles immigration lawyer Carl Shusterman, who represents about 100 hospitals nationwide.
Once permanent residency was approved, the nurses could apply for their families to join them, Shusterman said. "The nurses could go straight to the front of the line. Now they have to wait three years," he said.
This is because the government is holding off processing certain permanent residency petitions filed after March 1, 2002, until it determines that enough visas have been issued to all those who previously applied.
