Immigration News for Healthcare Professionals and
Organizations
Our health care
professional immigration legal team is only a short metro rail ride from
the Texas Medical Center. Additionally, our state of the art video
conferencing system makes initial consultations and follow up
conferences more convenient and productive regardless of distance. We
can schedule a legal consultation at a time and place convenient for
you.
Click here for full text of the ECFMG
announcement for displaced J-1 physicians
Click here for full text of the ECFMG
announcement for Institution Offering Temporary Training
Opportunities
EB-3 Green Card
Category UNAVAILABLE as of July 1st:
The July 2005 Visa Bulletin shows a retrogression to
"Unavailable" for employment-based third preference for all
nationalities. The category will not open up again until at least
September 30th. Accordingly, the CIS will not accept any new adjustment
of status applications for this category during this period and
currently pending adjustment of status applications for this category
will remain pending until numbers become available
again. Fortunately, RN's and Physical Therapists, Schedule A
designees who usually rely on this category, now have their own separate
allotment of visa numbers to reflect the changes contained in the
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on
Terror, and Tsunami Relief Act of 2005.
Department of State Forecast for Nurses and Physical
Therapists:
While Schedule A designees include qualifying physical
therapists, and certain exceptional ability individuals in the sciences
or arts, the benefit of the recaptured 50,000 visas likely will go
largely to nurses. The DOS Visa Office noted that the additional 50,000
Schedule A visas will help, but there is no way of telling how much of
the current Employment Third preference demand will be covered by these
additional numbers. It is possible that most of the Philippines demand
is covered, but it's not clear how many of the 2,800 pending China/India
E3 applicants will qualify for Schedule A classification.
CGFNS Opens Exam Center in Abuja,
Nigeria for September 21, 2005 Exam:
The exam center will be open
for the September 21, 2005 exam. The deadline for applying is June 22,
2005. CGFNS administers its Qualifying Exam four times each year for
nurses educated outside the United States who wish to practice nursing
in the U.S. The September exam will be administered for the first time
in Abuja, Nigeria. The Qualifying Exam is designed for first-level,
general nurses educated outside the United States, who wish to become
licensed in the U.S. Forty U.S. states require that foreign-educated
nurses pass the CGFNS Qualifying Exam before they will be authorized to
sit for the NCLEX-RN® examination, (the U.S. national licensure exam for
registered nurses). In some cases nurses wishing to sit for an exam in
the U.S. might be eligible to enter under a visitors visa for the sole
purpose of taking an exam.
2006 "IMG" Match Participants Must Take Step 2 CS
Early:
ECFMG advises that demand for Step 2 CS is
expected to be heavy throughout 2005, especially in the months preceding
the Match. IMGs who wish to participate in the National Resident
Matching Program (NRMP), or "the Match," must have passed all exams
required for ECFMG Certification. Those who plan to participate in the
2006 Match and need to pass Step 2 CS are reminded that taking Step 2 CS
later than December 31, 2005 might not
yield results in time to participate in the 2006 Match. Likewise, IMGs
should begin reviewing visa options for their residency period sooner
rather than later given the many changes in immigration law impacting
foreign national healthcare providers.
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