The State Department has announced priority dates for Schedule A permanent residency applications beginning next month. The vast majority of such cases are filed by nurses and they will then face the multi-year backlogs that currently exist for EB-3 employment-based immigrant visa applicants. The change will effectively grind nursing immigration to a halt and may dramatically worsen an already severe nursing shortage in the United States .

Nurses are generally only able to come to the US on green cards since most are ineligible for non-immigrant visas (though a prominent exception exists for nurses from Canada and Mexico under NAFTA). For several years, that has meant one to two year waits for nurses and their employers. In 2005, Congress set aside 50,000 green cards for Schedule A applicants and that has helped continue the flow of nurses to health care facilities around the US .

Accordin to the State Department’s Visa Bulletin, as of November 1, 2006 the immigrant visa numbers in the nurse category will retrogress back to October 2005, which means one to two year wait for nurses and hospitals wishing to employ them. That is because there is much more demand for these immigrant visas than what Congress allotted. 

For Americans, the news could not come at a worse time. The health care industry is experiencing a critical shortage of nurses. Many estimate that the shortage will grow to as large as a million nurses by the end of the next decade.  The vast majority of nurses entering the US from outside North America are coming from the Philippines and India .

After the Senate passes its version of a comprehensive immigration reform that included relief for immigrant visa numbers for nurses, Congress refused to pass a similar bill and instead focused on enforcement only legislation. The nursing fix historically had a broad bipartisan support however no relief is expected in sight.

Karen can be contacted at kweinstock@visalaw.com.

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