Visa for Nurses to End Soon

The H-1C program for Registered Nurses which started on September 21, 2000 is set to expire on December 20, 2009. There is no indication at this time that it will be extended.

The program was established pursuant to the Nursing Relief for Disadvantaged Areas Act of 1999 as a way to reduce shortage of nurses in health professional shortage areas. 500 visas are allotted each year which is in turn subject to a per state limit of up to 50 based on its population.

Because of this restrictive requirement, only 14 hospitals have been approved to file H-1C petitions. They are: Beaumont Regional Medical Center, Beaumont, TX.; Beverly Hospital, Montebello, CA; Doctors Medical Center, Modesto, CA: Elizabeth General Medical Center, Elizabeth, NJ; Fairview Park Hospital, Dublin, GA; Lutheran Medical Center, St. Louis, MO; McAllen Medical Center, McAllen, TX; Mercy Medical Center, Baltimore, MD; Mercy Regional Medical Center, Laredo, TX; Peninsula Hospital Center, Far Rockaway, NY; Southeastern Regional Medical Center, Lumberton , NC; Southwest General Hospital, San Antonio, TX; St. Bernard Hospital, Chicago, IL: and Valley Baptist Medical Center, Harlingen, TX.

In order to be eligible to petition nurses for H-1C visa, a hospital has to be located in a professional health shortage area and must fulfill other requirements such as having a minimum of 190 acute care beds, having at least 35 % of patients covered by Medicare and at least 28% of the patients covered by Medicaid. A hospital must have been in a health professional shortage area on March 30, 1997.

H-1C nurses cannot constitute more than one-third of the hospital nursing staff and they cannot work in a location that is not under its control nor can they be transferred from one location to another.

Only hospitals are eligible to sponsor H-1C nurses. Nursing homes, clinics, health care agencies and skilled nursing facilities are excluded.

Because of the stringent requirements, only 532 nurses have entered the U.S. under the H-1C visa as reported in the 2008 USCIS Yearbook on Immigration Statistics. The annual breakdown is as follows: 2001 “ 29; 2002 “ 111; 2003 “ 48; 2004 “ 70; 2005 “ 21; 2006- 24; 2007 “ 49; and 2008 -170.

There had been attempts in Congress to ease the stringent requirements and eliminate the numerical limitation such as the bills introduced by Senator Sam Brownback in 2001 and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in 2001 and 2003 but they died for lack of support.

There were also bills that were introduced to create another type of visa for nurses. The Nursing Relief Act which sought to create a new W-1 visa was introduced by Rep. John Shadegg in 2006 but it did not go beyond the Judiciary Committee.

The Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act which has been introduced every year in the last few years tried to address the shortage of nurses by increasing the number of employment-based immigrant visas for several years also failed to gather enough co-sponsors.

Hopefully, the proposed comprehensive immigration reform bill which includes more immigrant visas for nurses will pass sooner rather than later.