A nurse immigration relief amendment was included by unanimous consent in a voice vote in the U.S. Senate last evening. Nursing immigration ground to a halt earlier this year because of retrogression in the EB-3 green card category, the depletion of a 2005 allotment of 50,000 green cards for nurses and the lack of a non-immigrant visa category for nurses. The U.S. Senate added the measure as an amendment to a Labor budget bill. We await the final language but here are the key provisions:

• 61,000 visas for Schedule A occupations (nurses and physical therapists) and their immediate family members
• A $1500 additional fee for each of these green cards to be paid as a condition of approval of the adjustment application by USCIS or issuance of the visa by the State Department; waiver for certain facilities in disaster areas or HHS-designated health professional shortage areas.
• Brain drain provision one: nurses, physicians and other health care workers must attest that they do not owe their native country any financial obligation tied to their health care worker education (an exception is made if the obligation was incurred by coercion or in the case of undue hardship); this provision shall take effect 180 days after passage of the bill
• A grant program is created to allow US nursing schools to increase the number of nursing faculty and students
• Brain drain provision two: Permanent resident health care workers (including doctors and nurses) will get credit toward naturalization and not be deemed to have abandoned permanent residency during time spent working in certain countries (a list will be published by DOS within six months (and DHS must publish rules within six months) of enactment of the legislation and updated annually):
  • countries eligible for International Development Association assistance or
  • which are classified as "lower middle income countries" in the World Development Report for Reconstruction and Development published by the Bank for Reconstruction and Development or
  • a country determined jointly by DHS and DOS to be qualified due to special circumstances such as natural disasters or public health emergencies

The brain drain provisions cover doctors as well as other health care workers.

Note that the bill still has some key hurdles including making it out of a House-Senate conference committee and past a presidential veto. But passage on the Senate floor was considered the biggest obstacle.

Updates will be posted here as they become available.

This amendment is the result of intensive efforts by CTIHS (Coalition to Improve Healthcare Staffing), see www.ctihs.org. Founded in 2004, the CTIHS is a collection of nearly 75 employment immigration attorneys who concentrate their practice in healthcare employment immigration law. These attorneys represent over 500 healthcare facilities, staffing companies, nurses, physical therapists, and other stakeholders. The CTIHS will continue its work on this and other reform and legislative efforts.