RETROGRESSION
Retrogression happens when a visa category becomes oversubscribed, or when
the number of qualified applicants exceeds the number of visas available.
As a result, the US Department of State, through its US Embassies, imposes
a strict quota on the number of visas further released for the countries
affected (in this case, China, India and the Philippines) and is no longer
able to process new employment based immigrant visa applications for a
temporary but indefinite period, beginning January 1, 2005. Additionally,
a “cut-off” date or “overall-priority” date is imposed. In order to be
granted an immigrant visa, those with pending immigrant visa applications
must have filing dates earlier than the “overall-priority” date, which is
currently January 1, 2002. The progress on the cut-off date for the quota
is announced by the Department of State monthly bulletin –
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_2007.html
EFFECT ON PHILIPPINE
NURSES
Retrogression has several consequences for EB-3 applicants from the
Philippines:
1.
Applicants with filing dates later than the “overall priority” date of
January 1, 2002 should expect significant delays in their immigrant visa
cases. The application will remain pending until the overall priority date
advances to reach the individual’s priority date. What normally takes the
National Visa Center six months to process, may now take a significantly
longer time.
2.
Nurses
who file their immigrant visa petitions later than January 1, 2005 may
still submit their I-140 applications, and the USCIS may still adjudicate
this step of the immigration process at any of the four filing centers of
Vermont, Nebraska, Texas or California. However, these applications will
have to wait indefinitely once they reach the National Visa Center for
Packet 3 processing.
Future movement of the overall priority date will be determined by demand
for immigrant visas. How backlogged the quota will become is impossible to
guess at this time. Speculation among US immigration law practitioners is
that the quota for EB-3 category may fall back some two or three years.
WHAT NURSES SHOULD DO
It
is important to keep in mind that the retrogression phenomenon is a visa
shortage crisis brought about by current US laws, and may change if the
demand for visas decreases (which is highly unlikely) or if current laws
are amended.
Retrogression does not mean that the US no longer needs nurses from the
Philippines. In fact, the US nursing shortage continues to remain acute.
US healthcare employers are alarmed and greatly concerned about the impact
of retrogression to the US healthcare sector, and have consequently taken
initial steps in order to pursue the necessary legislative reforms to
rectify the problem. To this end, a wide coalition of stakeholders which
include hospitals, health care facilities, long term care organizations,
nursing groups, staffing organizations, immigration law firms and NGOs have
formed a lobby group that will demand the US Congress to enact special
provisions in current US immigration laws to either provide for
non-immigrant temporary work visas for foreign nurses similar to the H1-B,
or increase the EB-3 category in order to accommodate foreign nurses that
are desperately needed by the US healthcare industry. Additionally, the
Philippine Government has initiated talks with the US Government to
likewise appeal for special measures that will allow the continued entry of
Filipino nurses into the US workforce.
Thus, it would be safe to assume that the delays in the immigrant visa
processing will be temporary, and that solutions to this crisis will be
forthcoming. So if you are truly committed to working as a nurse in the
United Sates, the general advice is to remain faithful to the nursing
practice, and expect the immigrant visa queue for nurses to return to
normal in due time. The more specific advice, however, are as follows:
1.
If you
are a nurse with a pending immigrant visa application:
a.
Stay in
communication with your US employer/petitioner, your immigration attorney
and your recruitment agency. Find out what your immigration petition
filing date is. The filing date corresponds to your “individual priority
date.” If your filing date is later than January 1, 2002, expect
significant delays (that is still undetermined however some immigration
lawyers speculate up to 3 years)
in your petition case,
and organize your life around these expected delays.
b.
Use the
waiting period to deepen your tertiary hospital experience, and seek every
opportunity to improve your nursing skills through training.
c.
Though
the wait may be long, remain faithful with your employer/petitioner and be
patient with the process. By no means should you consider changing
employer/petitioner at this time. Doing so would mean losing your place in
the visa processing queue, and would generally mean having to re-file your
case, starting all over, and joining the 2005 applicants in the indefinite
wait of “retrogression limbo”.
d.
Take the
initiative and update yourself on the progress of the overall priority date
issued monthly by the Department of State on the Internet by visiting
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_2007.html
2.
If you
are a nurse who is still completing your
US credentialing requirements,
and/or are still in a search of an ideal US employer:
a.
By all
means, continue your efforts in doing so
b.
Once you
have completed your credentialing requirements, and have found the employer
of your choice, make sure that your immigration petition is filed right
away. Expect to wait for 2 to 3 years.
c.
Use the
waiting period to deepen your tertiary hospital experience, and seek every
opportunity to improve your nursing skills through training.
d.
Take the
initiative and update yourself on the progress of the overall priority
date issued monthly by the Department of State on the Internet by
visiting
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_2007.html
3.
If you
are a nursing student, with your eyes set on working in the US a few years
after graduation:
a.
Bear in
mind that the opportunity to work in the
US is still available to you,
because the US Department of Labor has projected that the US nursing
shortage shall continue until 2020. Immigrant visa processing time just
takes longer now than it used to.
b.
Aside
from doing well in all your academic and clinical nursing subjects, make
sure that you spend time and effort building your English proficiency
skills as well. It may interest you to know that by far, the greatest
obstacle to becoming a nurse in the United States is the English exam. Of
all the nurses from the Philippines who took the CGFNS, an average of
about 45% passed. However, only about 17% pass the English exam which is
necessary in order to get a Visa Screen certificate.
c.
Should
you fail to find local employment in the
Philippines after you graduate,
consider finding employment in other countries with less stringent visa
requirements. Apart from the
US, the nursing shortage also
affects other countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and Japan. You may still pursue
your US employment application even if you are based outside the
Philippines, because many resources that you need in order to qualify for
a job in the US are available online via the Internet.
FULL BACKGROUND
US law mandates an annual limit
on how many immigrant visas can be issued in each of the five
employment-based preference visa categories. The “EB-3” is for foreign
nationals who will fill a position for which the requirements are less than
a Master's degree or a Bachelor's and two years of experience. The "EB-3”
is the visa category that is used for most of the immigrant visa cases
filed by US healthcare employers for nurses hired from the
Philippines. Apart from nurses, those
who can apply for EB-3 visas are teachers, some accountants, and IT
workers. At the same time,
US law also imposes per-country
limits on the number of immigrant visas in each preference category that
can be issued to nationals of any country.
For the past several years, the volume of permanent residence approvals for
the EB-3 category has been within the set limitations, and the immigrant
visa allotment has been undersubscribed. However, the increased demand for
immigrant visas during the first quarter of this fiscal year
(October-December 2004) has now triggered the numerical restrictions
limitations for EB-3 applicants specifically for the “high demand”
countries of China, India and the Philippines. The over subscription was
due in part to the efforts of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
to reduce backlog. Last year, it stepped up processing of EB-3 visa
applications for adjustment status of foreign nationals already in the US,
benefiting thousands of foreign IT workers who migrated to the US at the
height of the technology boom in 1999-2000, and foreign teachers who have
also been working in the US on temporary work visas. As a result, the US
State Department experienced very heavy demand in the EB-3 category. Each
adjustment of status case that is approved by the USCIS uses one visa
number that may otherwise have been issued by an embassy or consulate.
Once the numerical
limitation has been triggered, the Department of State uses a "priority
date" mechanism to regulate the flow of applications. The "individual
priority date" of an individual's application is the date that the
permanent residence process is begun. For foreign nurses seeking permanent
residence in the US, this is the filing date of the I-140 Immigrant Visa
Petition. Each month, the Department of State then establishes an "overall
priority date" or “cut-off date” for each preference category, announced
through its website: http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi_bulletin. To apply
for or be granted an Immigrant Visa at a U.S. consulate abroad (in our
case, by the US Embassy, Manila), the beneficiary's “individual priority
date” must be earlier than the “overall priority date” or “cut-off date”
set by the Department of State. This phenomenon is called
retrogression.
Registered Nurses will be hardest hit by the retrogression because nurses
have very limited non-immigrant visa solutions available to them.
The Department of State has announced that, as of January 1, 2005 the
overall priority date for EB-3 applicants from China, India and the
Philippines will be January 1, 2002.
This statement is
issued by the Healthcare Recruitment Network,
Philippines (HRNP).
The HRNP was formed with a four-fold mission to:
-
Promote ethical
nursing recruitment.
-
Safeguard the welfare
and the integrity of the healthcare recruitment industry.
-
Connect the
healthcare recruitment industry, the academe and professional nursing
organizations with the global healthcare market.
-
Support the creation
of a Center for Service Excellence for nursing education and training.
To
contact the HRNP, you may e-mail:
prideinthefilipinonurse@yahoo.com
