Immigration Q&A Session LIVE Show FULL pt 2

Hi, everybody, and welcome. It's Friday, so it must be the Connetics USA live show onwards and upwards, everything that a nurse needs to know about living and working in the United States and we are very excited today to have my colleague, Chris Musillo. Hi, Chris. Welcome. Hi there. As well as Mike Hammond joining us. How are you? Hi, welcome. Mike and Sang Shin joining Hi, Sang. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Welcome to everybody who's watching today from all over the world.  I see we've got Nasha saying, Hi, Tanya. We missed you last week. I missed you too, everybody. I was on my first vacation in two years. So sorry to miss out last week, but we are here today. Bert is saying Hi, Bert. Welcome. Please. Everybody who's watching all over the world, put your name in the chat. Let us know where you are, where you're watching from.

And today's topic is Q and A with our legal experts. We have lots of questions that are prepared by everybody who watches the show. And then I know that we're going to have a lot of questions in the chat. I'm going to try and get through as many questions as possible. Immigration is very, very complicated. It's stressful. It reduces a lot of anxiety. So this is your chance, everybody, to ask your legal questions of the best legal minds in the country that are going to be sharing their wisdom, their pearls. Look at Mike nodding his head, their pearls of wisdom with you today. So I see we have Pascal is saying Hi. Jensen is watching from Doha. Ashini is watching. Pascal is from South America.

So welcome to everybody who's watching. Okay, Sheen from the Philippines. So before we get started, just to let everybody know, please stay on until the end of the show because we have our NCLEX winner that will be announced at the end of the show. And we are very excited to reveal we have our NCLEX scholarship and Connetics pay for the NCLEX exam for one lucky winner every month. Okay, so immigration, everybody, I've got so many questions for our legal panel and let's get started. We have a question from Louise who is saying when it really affects citizenship if a nurse buys out their contract.

Chris, what's your answer to that question? Yeah. So theoretically it could. There's a lot of components to when a nurse seeks to buy out her contract in terms of impacting her long term citizenship. Depending on when she leaves, the USCIS could have made the determination that if that nurse leaves her contract and leaves her employer, that she did not actually intend to work for that employer, which is one of her conditions on applying for the green card. And so when she applies for citizenship five years later, the USCIS could raise that question with her, which is to say, did you actually intend to work for that employer or did you just use that employer intending to simply buy out your contract and moving on. And so it's a very fact specific scenario, but theoretically it could. It could. Okay. And I think, Louise, that just points to the fact that when you sign in a commitment, it's really like a marriage. You want to ask all your questions. You want to be sure that this is the right employer for you because you really need to take it very seriously. You don't want to be jumping around. We get this question every week. Mike, can you maybe tell us a little bit about the visa bulletin and the latest update and what you anticipate going forward? Sure. So I think the good news relative to the visa bulletin is that no one is really anticipating any retrograde for the rest of this fiscal year and probably beyond that for quite a while. But the fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. So that's the year that we look at in theory. There are two charts. There's the data filing chart and a final action date chart. To get actually your green card approved, you need to be what they call current. You need to be in the front of the line for the final action date chart. We've seen a lot of movement in categories since last fall or the fall of 2020. And that is a byproduct of COVID. So there is a rule that had not been used since the 70s, I believe, that says unused family cases, immigrant visas or green cards for the family category kind of spill over into the employment category. And with covet and with consulate shut down and with people not Immigrating, there was a lot of unused family based immigrant visas, which most family based cases come from overseas that were unused. So they trickled over, floated over into the employment based site that's created this flux me of fact, if you go to the USCIS website and you go to their page about 485 or getting a green card here in the US, they have a big, huge announcement at the very top that says we have a lot of immigrant visas available this year. Please apply as quickly as you can. So that's why there's no retrogression. It's likely to continue on for a little while. It doesn't necessarily speed things up at the consulates, obviously, unfortunately. But we are seeing some movement there. So I think that's the bottom line we want to hear is retrogression is not expected anytime soon.

Okay. So those are very encouraging, positive words from Mike. And I know for many nurses, they worry about that dreaded R word retrogression. So that's good news. And if you are watching today and you have not yet taken your NCLEX exam, please do so. are so many opportunities in the United States. Please go ahead and apply to Connetics USA to our website. We have many opportunities all over the United States and there really is more demand than this ever. All of us on this panel have been doing this for many years, and we've never seen the demand like it is today in the United States. So as Mike says, no better time to come to the United States. We have a question here from Love. Love is saying my case is in administrative processing after I had my concierge interview. What does that mean and how long is it going to take? Yeah. Well, Hello, I always wanted to say that. So sorry. Very nice to meet you. It's a great question. It's something that practitioners like Chris Mike and I don't like to hear because just like with any immigration process, there is a little bit of unknown, especially because immigration is such a discretionary process. Administrative processing is what I also call a security clearance. And essentially, after your interview, officers have the discretion to take your case and do a little bit more of a background check. So you might have received a form called a 55350r. Maybe not. But what it is, an extensive background check goes back 15 years. And what they'll do is after you fill that out, they'll send it over to Washington for them to review, and then they'll come back and then you're clear to go. Timing wise, we have seen ranges anywhere from about I've seen as small as around four weeks or so. But usually I think that generally it takes up to anywhere between 90 to 120 days. It is discretionary. Unfortunately, we just have to kind of wait it out. There's really nothing that we can do in that regard. But as long as you have a squeaky clean history, which I think most everybody does knock on wood, then I think that you're going to be just fine. Yeah. So there's nothing that can really be done to expedite that, right? Yeah, I wish there was. There's things that we can do, for example, as practitioners, if the consulate or the embassy is not moving forward on your case. Right. We can send letters, we can work with the hospitals to try to push that through. But unfortunately, this is a government led kind of security background check. And so I don't know what you guys think, but I think if we push that might make them a little more upset and they might take longer. Chris, Mike, do you agree with that? I think there's always a possibility when there's pushing that's unreasonable, because we realize that if they're going to do an extended background check, that's going to take some time and it's reasonable for it to take some additional time. And so asking them to you're essentially asking them not to do it, and they've already decided to do it. And you're trying to place your judgment in place of their judgment. So I think in a situation like that, you kind of let it ride. I think there are other things that are worth fighting over. The third decision to need an extra security check is probably not one of them. Okay, fair enough. So there we go. Thank you, love, for sharing your question. And there you've got your answer from the experts. We have Ash Nietzsche watching from London, sun from United Arab Emirates, and from Philippines. Jansson has a question.

Chris, Jansen would like to know about getting the schedule for an embassy interview. Will they consider the priority date or the DQ date? How does that work, Chris? Well, both. You can't get DQD without having a priority date. That's current, of course. But I do think that the Embassies tend to work off the documentarily qualified date more than the current date. The priority date. Okay. But maybe the bigger point, though, is that there's an enormous amount of variance embassy by embassy into when they schedule these  appointments. And so the fallacy is to believe that it's done in any sort of strict organizational way. So it's not necessarily first in, first out. It's supposed to be first in, first out. But I think Mike and Sang would agree that there's a pretty high level of variance embassy by embassy within that general idea. Okay, so, Jansen, there you have your answer. Emmanuels from the UK, Sonya from Bermuda. I love it because we like the United Nations. Yeah, people from all over the world. Such fun. Cloy says retrograde sucks. We agree. Pascal has got a question. How soon after graduating can you start the NCLEX process? Pascal, this is a good question. I would start it right away. We actually have on the Connetics USA website a success path because the process can feel very confusing.

And the success path will show you the different steps that you need to take in order to get to the United States. The first step is the NCLEX, and we have many employers that we have on the screen a graphic of the success part. The first step is the NCLEX. Then you have the interview and the visa framework. That whole piece that we're talking about now with the legal experts, licensing and credentialing, the get ready game plan, arrival sequence, and then enjoy and prosper, which is what we want for everybody who wants to come to the United States. But even if you don't have experience, we have many employers that will take new grades. So please go ahead and apply to the Connetics USA website and get that impact done as soon as possible.

Chester has a question. Hi everybody. Is there any way to expedite the citizenship after EB3 category for like three years, just like for spouses who married an American citizen. Mike, no short and sweet. No way. Anne is asking. I would like to ask if it's necessary to change my status at NVC from married to legally separated or annulled. I am now DQ and waiting for my ID and only last month and when the decision of my announcement came out then that one's a little bit complicated. That's why Tommy asked you. I'm sorry. He was like, not exactly. I had this come up recently for another type of case in terms of a person was married, and then, of course, a legal separation happened. We're not family law experts, but I will say that in most jurisdictions, legal separation, there's like this period of time where legal separation is not actually a divorce. You're still considered married. But I like to be conservative with a lot of things. And so if it's something that comes up or if there is a question by the officer, I think you have to tell the truth. Right. You have to just be honest and say, hey, we're still married, but there's a legal separation and you leave it in the hands and the discretion of the officers to kind of move forward with that process. Right. I don't know. Reasonable minds differ in terms of whether it's something that you have to proactively. Just provide two officers. But I think it really depends upon the timing and where you are with that. But legal separation versus actual divorce, I know they are different. Right. So I think it depends on the circumstances. I know all of us kind of have that visa preparation call prior to you going in. So I would probably look at the timing of the interview, and a lot of it is just waiting on the officer to ask. I don't think it's something that you proactively do unless there is kind of, for example, a finalized divorce. Okay. So thank you. Saying it obviously sounds like a little bit more complicated. Depends on the case. But I think good practice. I think all the expert panel would agree is when you go to that concept interview is to be honest. And if you're not asked about it, do you have to disclose that or would you just not disclose it unless asked? What would you like to know? Facts, specific, right? I don't know, Mike, Chris, you guys might want to chime. I think it's fact specific. Right? I mean, like, if it's early on in the process and in your state, for example, if legal separation is kind of that period where the marriage has a chance to be rehabilitated, I don't know if you can call that an actual divorce. I think it really is based upon the facts. Yeah. We had a case like this recently, Tanya, and the way that I advise it was like this. The first thing is you, the nurse, have to consider your case. And so for that, in my mind, that one's pretty clear, which is just be Truthful with the officer. If the officer asks you what your marriage status is, you can say legally separated. You can say divorced. Just whatever is the accurate part. It is. The one part I don't like to see sometimes happen in these situations is the nurse. And it doesn't even have to be a nurse. It can be anybody. The immigrant sometimes seems more interested in making sure that their spouse or ex spouse does or doesn't get a visa versus their own case. And for that, I would just simply say if you're divorcing and separating, it's really best for you, even from a mental health standpoint, even beyond immigration, that trying to punish the old party is just not the right thing to do. And so don't focus on making sure your ex spouse does or doesn't get a green card. Focus on you being Truthful and you getting your green card. And don't worry so much about what happens to the other person. They're either going to qualify or not qualify on their own merits. Okay. All right. Interesting question and interesting answers. Thank you to the panel for that. At the end of the day, when you go to that constant interview, you always want to be honest. I would also just want you to give a shout out to anybody who is curious about the entire immigration process. I would advise you to check out on the Connetics USA website, the three day marathon that we did on Back to Basics, which is everything that you need to know about the concierge process and the concierge interview we obviously covered on that show. There's also a workbook on the Connetics USA website. This is free information for nurses. You really cannot get this anywhere else, just talking about the whole immigration process, specifically from the nurses perspective. And that is free information for you and just our way of paying it forward. Okay, so moving on.

So Nash is asking I would like to know, for the embassy interview in Abu Dhabi. This is a question we get every day. How long is the estimated time to get an appointment for interview? Chris, what are you seeing on the consular interview side? This is a question we get almost every time we do one of these, of course. And the reality is, first of all, it's consular specific. So Dubai is going to be different than London, which is going to be different than Manila. The reality is we are seeing some take as quick as maybe five months or so from the approval of the I-140. And others are out there. We probably still have some that are from 2020 when their I-140 was approved. And they're supposed to use a first in, first out system. I think they try to inspire it, but they don't probably in actuality. So I think if your case is anywhere from five to twelve months, you're probably 80% or 90% of all the nurses out there for more than twelve months. It's maybe time to see if you can get the attorney involved or your employer involved to see why your case is taking so long. And I would virtually never expect it to be faster than that. Okay. Are you seeing the timelines improving at the consulate.

And this is a question for everybody on the panel. So the State Department is I know they've been working in particular on the Manila backlog, which is, of course, where the largest group of nurses come from. They claim to have approved I think it's about 4000 nurses and family members over the last about 90 days, which is probably something like 1500 or 2000 nurses, which is good. But the backlog, as Mike was saying a little earlier, is almost 24 months on where the Embassies were working at, I don't know, scientifically, but something probably like just ten or 20% of capacity. And so there is a long queue of nurses behind. I am optimistic that the rest of this year provided covet or God forbid, some other pandemic doesn't arise, that they are going to work through this backlog. I know from talking to State Department officials that they want to work on this backlog. And they've specifically mentioned healthcare workers. They've specifically mentioned the US Embassy in Manila. And so I think that they want to really reduce this backlog, Tanya, but sometimes what the government wants and what it's actually capable of doing are two different things. Yeah. I don't know what was saying. And Mike, if you want to chime in, if you have seen any changes or improvements in the delays of the consulate, but we definitely are seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel with a lot of the cases that we have going at the moment, and also a lot of the clients that work with Connetics are now also working with their local congressmen to try and push and expedite the cases as well. Mike Sang, what are you seeing in terms of the delay? Yeah. One of the things that we have to all understand is that every single case is requesting an expedite and they're approving the expedite in every single case, which means that if everybody's expedited, no one is expedited. Yeah. So that all sounds good and it makes us all feel good, but it really has no effect because we're all in still that same boat. I would say if we go away from Manila, that the consulates are, I would say, fairly quick and scheduling appointments after someone has been DQ, and we've seen very little issues. Matter of fact, we've actually seen some fairly unusual what I would say activity with respect to some non Manila consulates. I had someone about two months ago who emailed the employee directly from the consulate and CC's me on it saying, hey, we've got a cancelation for tomorrow. I know you're not scheduled for three weeks, but can you guys come in? And they were like, sure, nothing happens overnight. I don't know about it until the next morning. Of course, it's already done. That's a big effort on the part of a conflict to say, hey, let me fill this slot and reach out to maybe even multiple people to see who could fill it. I would say that we are optimistic over what has been happening in Manila over the last couple of months, and that makes us more optimistic as to the future with Manila. But we're also slightly realist in that and that hopefully they can keep it going. We'll see. Yeah. And I just would like to piggyback off of both what Chris and Mike have said. And I think there is optimism, other concepts for sure. I've experienced the same thing as Mike where the constant has actually come back and said, hey, come on in. In a couple of weeks, we have some opening cancellations. I've seen that. I've also seen definitely your documentary qualified, and then it sits for a little longer, but then immediately, soon thereafter, you do get the interview request. I will say that I recently attended a Department of State kind of meeting as well. And we can't underestimate the impact that COVID had on even jobs just in general. Everyone knows kind of what that did to the US or around the world. But even State Department officials, there were a lot of people that were out of jobs. Right. And I do know that I think they quoted almost 500 jobs were lost in the last two years at the part of the state. So those are individuals around conflicts and embassies around the world and they're adding those back. Right. So they are getting more manpower. And I feel like that is light at the end of the tunnel. That is something that we should definitely look in optimism towards. Yeah. Okay, good. Thank you for sharing all of that. Everybody who's watching all over the world feeling very frustrated about waiting at the consulates. And there are measures being taken in the United States where there is to the Aihr. And many of the lawyers here are members of the AAIHR Connetics are also members as your local congressmen, but continue to expedite your cases. And as everybody on the panel has said, there is optimism, which is good news. Okay.

Julian is asking how long the whole process takes from South America, Mike. And I think Julian is obviously responding to an EB3 consider green card. Yeah. So I think one of the things to keep in mind is that the timing of the overall process, essentially three factors. One is your country of birth. So we have lines for people that were born in China and India. There are no lines for anyone else. So if you're born in any other country other than China and India, then right now that variable is gone. There is no line for you. The second variable is whether or not you're going to I140 is going to be done under premium or not premium. It takes about three weeks to get an I-140 approved, a regular processing. I-140 is, I don't know, roughly ten months or something guys, to be honest, I'm not sure, but a long time, a lot longer than three weeks, and then you have the consulate. So we just talked about the Manila is a lot slower than any other consulate. So if you were born in South America and you premium process your case and you're at one of the embassies in South America, it may be realistic that in under a year kind of thing, I never use a time more than about eight to ten months because I think that's not really fair, but I think that would be reasonable from that part of the world. Okay. Thank you, Mike. So there you go on that question, Julian. And just for anybody who's watching from a Connetics perspective, we have every single one of our clients pay premium, processing that expedite fee to help make sure that we get the I-140 as quickly as possible. And we usually only start the recruitment once the prevailing wage and posting is back. So, Vicky, we already spoke about the embassy backlog. So thank you for your question.

Anthony is saying Hi. And Anthony is asking we get this question every month as well, saying, can you talk a little bit about the Indian EB3 visa status? I know Mike touched on that, yes, absolutely. So Mike was talking about the visa bulletin earlier, and the visible bulletin is the Department of State kind of source that we go to to see when we can file for or when green cards or immigrant visas will be available for individuals in countries of birth around the world. So I'm looking at it right now. And the EB3 backlog for India for the month of March is currently at the final action date chart is January 15 of 2012 and for the date of filing, January 20, 2012. So there's a little bit of a line now, his does change from time to time, right? So these visa bullets come out each month. I think it's like either the last second to last or last week of each month. They published the following months. And so we haven't seen much change in India for a while. But I think it was just recently, I think maybe in October of last year. Guys, correct me if I was two years ago, there was a huge kind of push and all those dates went up for a little bit and became available. So right now there's a little bit of a wait time. But what we do is it doesn't mean, for example, right now there is this ten year wait time. It's going to stay that way each month. It just kind of retrogress or progress. But for right now, EB3, India is a little bit backlog. Yeah. So is there any hope for an Indian born nurse? I'm an optimist. I know that we are realistic as well. And we have to be realistic. There's always hope. Okay. So to speak. And as I mentioned, these dates do change time to time. It doesn't happen all the time. But like I said, I think it was October of 2020. There was this huge progression of dates in the EB3 category, so much so that I believe that a lot of people from India that were in EB2 switched to EB3. Now we know now that it's not really something that they want to do, but there was this progression. So there is hope. But let's get realistic about it is that I think there's still going to be a wait for a while. Okay. And that leads us to our next question.

Chris, we have a question from Karen who's asking about legislation in Congress. So can you tell me more about the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act? Are there any other bills in Congress and do you think they'll pass? Chris? Yes. So the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act is in front of Congress right now. It needs to be passed by the end of the year or else, like all legislation, it essentially extinguishes and then has to be reintroduced next year. The reality is the odds of it passing, I think, are not very high, which is to say probably pretty low. Unfortunately, that's unfortunate for a lot of reasons, not least of which it would be great for all nurses. There is some push right now to try and get more votes just in February. I'm looking at it right now. Twelve different senators joined onto the bill. So 25 senators and that's a mix of both Republicans and Democrats have signed onto the bill. And there's only 100 senators. So that's 25% of the Congress. And there's comparable numbers on the House, which is the other side of the thing. The best chance might have been there's an omnibus budget bill going through the federal government right now. That is, I think, just agreed on this week. It doesn't look like this bill is going to get on there. There was a few immigration provisions, but all of those, I think, were essentially extensions or modifications of existing rules or rules that had actually ended and needed to be reauthorized. All that having been said is I doubt anything will go positive legislation this year, but there remain a number of opportunities in this year and next year. But again, I would put the odds as well, I guess, is the real answer. Okay. And then that's a realistic expectation that everyone would have. I mean, the one thing to consider is I know it was in the news. I think it was last week that the American Hospital Association has now called us. It's no longer a nursing shortage or a nursing crisis. They're calling it a healthcare workforce emergency. So there's also hope that that might actually push through some of these bills and legislation. Ok. So, Yusuf, I think we answered your question about the process.

I hope I've got that Wright is asking any advice for single parents who have children as their dependent? Is it better to make their status accompany or follow to join? Mike well, I think the question is more practical question for you and your family as to which way you're going to go. From a legal perspective, it really doesn't matter. Both are completely available. Both depend on circumstances. If you've got older kids and high school type age kids and you want them to finish school and so it makes more sense to do a follow to join. Great. If your kids are younger and they need to be with you or the schooling is not an issue, then I think doing them in a company. But I think it is just a personal family what's best for your family to do and then go that route because it just doesn't matter legally a personal decision. Absolutely. For anybody who's watching who doesn't understand or know the term follow to join, can you give us a brief two second explanation of exactly what that means and how it works? Yeah. Follow to join is simply a I'm getting my immigrant visa, my green card today, I'm entering the US next week or two weeks from now whenever I fly in. And then my spouse or kids that are eligible to come with me are coming later. So they're going to follow to join. They're going to come maybe this summer or whatever. So they still come under your green card. They're still eligible because they're dependent on you. They're simply not going to immigrate at the exact same time as you. And it's not unusual. We see it also a lot for individuals who may have schooling is the most common reason. We hear we want so and so to finish this particular program, and then they're going to come in and join us. But we see it with spouses because of a job, maybe needs to get wrapped up. There's a variety of reasons why it just makes sense. Okay. So really a personal decision in either way could work. Yes, absolutely. Saying we have a question here from Jesu Jitsu saying I'm planning to adopt a child and I have just signed an employment agreement with the US petitioner. How do I go about including my adopted child in my petition? I'm getting all the family questions today. So the adopted child, I think if it's a full adoption and it's recognized because you are going to have to help me. I think if you're recognized by Worldwide, I think it's a Hague convention. Correct me if I'm wrong, but family law says if they recognize the adoption, USCIS obviously will. Right. As a child. And so if that adoption has been completely done, that is your child for the purposes of USCIS and immigration law.  So, yeah, I don't know if that answers that. I don't know. We would have to do a little bit more research, probably get with our family law context to do that. But if it's a fully adopted child, that is your child in the eyes of the federal government. Okay. Yeah. I would just add to that this is such an important matter. You shouldn't be taking your advice on the YouTube or Facebook chat. You want to talk to your attorney who's working in your case, because there are specific rules about that in terms of how long the child has lived with you and things like this. And then there's also country specific rules the exiting country may have have a say in the issue. So this is something you want to make sure you get very specific advice. And this is much more generalized. Yeah. Technically with the family lawyer. Yeah. So complicated questions. So please make sure that you take care of that.

Deossa is asking. I think we've touched on this question, but let me just go ahead. I would like to ask if it's true that there's a 5600 limit cap applications per country to be accepted in the EB3 category in a fiscal year. What if the limit cap gets exhausted for a specific country before the fiscal year ends? Will they stop giving interview schedule until the next fiscal year ends? I think we kind of touched on this a little bit, Chris, but maybe if you can answer Diosa's question. Yes. So the short answer is no. Actually, that's not what the cap is because whatever the cap is, which is 7%. I think on a country basis, there's a lot more factors into it than just the EB category. There's things like Mike was saying before, which is family based visas being imported into the employment based category. There's also trickle down number. So if EB1 doesn't reach their full allotment, then it closed down to EB two and so on. So there's so many components to it. I guess I would say to this person who asked the question, number one, it sounds like you chose the wrong career. Maybe you want to get into law. And so I know Mike got an ad out for paralegals right now. You can start today, but no remote work. That's my first piece of advice. You're spending way too much time worrying about this. You're either current or you're not current or you're retrograde lying awake at night wondering if we're at 5000 visas in EB3 or 6000 visas and EB3. Again, Mike and I that we've got the hair to worry about it. You don't need to worry about it. So I would say don't worry about this inside baseball stuff. It's not worth trying to figure out. That's my suggestion. Okay. Thank you for that, Chris.

Okay. Christiana is asking how long does it an outage child to rejoin family after migration to the US with EB3. So, Christiana, I'm not 100% sure of your question. I think the question is that if your child is over 21, it looks like that's the question, Mike. Yeah. So you could then petition for your child under one of the family based categories. But I have no idea. How long do you got a visa? Bolton pulled up that they could say, what, F two? B? Yeah, let me find it. F two for what country again? Philippines. Is that where you were asking from? I think so. Final action for FTB is October 22 of 2011 and filing is October 1 of 2013. So the answer is a really long time. Okay. So I would encourage your child to look for alternative options other than you, you can certainly be the let's call it back up plan for whenever that date became current, a long, long time from now. But your child has the opportunities. child is obviously over 21, which is why they've aged out. So they have opportunities through education and through other types of means to try to come here to the US and be sponsored themselves, whether it be through a health care occupation or any other type of occupation where employers import workers. Okay. Thank you. Mike, we've got a question. Antony Michael is saying, Tanya, please answer this question about the EB3, India. So, Anthony Michael, we did answer that question. And hopefully that clarifies the Indian born questions for EB3.

Yusuf is asking about the steps. Yusuf, again, I would suggest that you look at the Connetics USA nursing recruitment agency website and the success part that gives you the detailed steps of how to go about coming to the United States. We know that it can feel very overwhelming and very confusing. There are lots of processes on the immigration and the licensing side. So please feel free to check out that success path and go through those steps and we'd be happy to help you. Okay.

Brenda is asking how long will it take to get a certification of ETA 988 from the Department of labor, watching from the Philippines saying, yeah, I can answer. I'm thinking that's 989, which is a labor certification. And here's finally some good news. The traditional green cards process for individuals in the United States requires. What I think you're alluding to there, Brenda, is that the ETA 90 89 has to be filed with the US Department of labor after some exhaustive recruitment efforts. And generally speaking, I think the Department of labor can take up to like six to seven months to get an Et 90 89. And if it's audited, it's even longer. The great news with Schedule A cases and you being a nurse is that we don't have to file the Department of labor. We're actually taking a completed ETA 90 89, and we are going to file with the I-140 process. Now, there are processes before that we do work with Department of labor on and that's getting a prevailing wage determination that can take up to about 90 to 120 days, sometimes optimistically, as you can see, I'm the optimistic person, but after that, we can file the ETA 90 89 with the schedule A process, assuming that you are a nurse. Okay. Thank you, Sam. Chris, we have a question here from Roberto. Roberto is saying I want to come to the United States as a nurse aide. How is that green card different and how long will it take? So the green card is exactly the same. In fact, all green cards are the same no matter what path you take to get the green card, whether it's a conventional professional nurse or nurse's aide, or for that matter, if you marry a US citizen. They're different paths, but they all lead to the exact same green card. The path, however, is different. The main difference is there is about a six to nine month process that is added on, tacked on to the beginning of the process. So if a nursing case, for argument's sake, takes twelve months from beginning to end, a nurse's aide case would take twelve plus nine months from beginning to end again, with some variance built in there for a variety of things that probably aren't worth getting into. But other than that, once you get your green card, it's exactly the same. You come in the United States, the only difference is you need to work as a nurse's aide. You can't work as a professional nurse at least until such time as you get if you do end up maybe getting promoted, taking the NCLEX, passing the NCLEX in your state. But the green card is exactly the same. It's the same exact green card. Okay, thank you for clarifying that, Chris. And right now Connetics USA have many, many opportunities for nurses as well. So again, apply to our website, Conneticsusa.com/application, and we'd be happy to help you with that. Vicki has a question. My EB1 EB 2 visa is still valid from 2019. Am I then able to travel to the States as I wait for my process to come to completion? Please? I think, Vicky, you're referring to that. You probably got an EB3 green card in process as well, Mike. So the easy answer is yes. But when you're coming in as a visitor, you have to convince them that at the border that you are intending simply to visit, that it's a short term stay. You're not looking to bypass the rest of the immigrant visa process and simply then change and file your I 45 here in the US. So I would say that if you've got a specific event like you're coming in, your sister lives here and her kids graduated from high school, and you're coming in for a high school graduation, and you've got documentation of that and you've got a return flight two weeks after that, then I think you're going to be fine. And I don't think you're going to have any trouble coming in if you've got this. Well, I just want to come and visit the US and visit people. And I probably have friends here. And it's very vague. Even though you already have a visa stamp in your passport, I think you potentially could get turned away at the border because you have an immigrant visa already filed on record saying, I intend to Immigrate that BDI 140. And now you're presenting a story that doesn't exactly fit up with a non immigrant intent. And then I think there's one other little trick to it is that let's say you do get admitted as a visitor, and then all of a sudden you call your case manager up and say, hey, I don't want to wait and go back for the consulate interview, because that's going to take a long time. I'm already here now. So how about if we just file my 45 and I've heard I can get my EAD card faster. Okay. In theory, sure. But when you do that, you have to then demonstrate that there was a change in circumstances such that that wasn't your intent when you first entered. And when you first entered on your 45, if 30 days later you're following your. 45, I think the USCIS is going to have a pretty good shot at saying you probably intended to do this all along, which means not only are you going to get your. 45 tonight, you're never going to get your immigrant visa, ever. So I think there's some you want to be really careful. And it goes back a little bit to some of the things Song and Tanya said at the very beginning about how you present yourself to the US Consulate, lying to the federal government is just bad. You just don't do it. So if you're coming in and saying, I don't intend to stay here, then follow through with that and go back after the kids graduation and sit through the process instead of changing your mind. Okay. So, Vicky, I think those are very wise words from Mike. You don't want to mess with the US immigration and really be very cautious about that. Okay. Well, we've got a lot of questions coming in. We've got Tilda. I think we've answered your question. Tilda, Eileen is watching from Jamaica. Amber has a question. May I ask, how long can you be absent from US soil once you've been granted the green card, and will it affect your application for naturalization in the future? Much appreciated. To all same. Yeah, good question. So once you get the green card, you are considered a lawful permanent resident of the United States. And there are obviously times where people have to go back home. Right. For whatever reason. And so just in general, to get naturalization, there is a five year period where you have to be a permanent resident, and half of that time you have to spend in the United States. To your specific question, when it comes to kind of a continuous presence type of analysis, I generally say that at the six month Mark. If you're outside the United States for more than six months at any given time, then there is a presumption by immigration officials that you have abandoned your green card status. Now that presumption may be rebuttal when you come back into the United States. But then if it gets to a year and you've been out longer than that, then the USCIS officer or I'm sorry, the immigration officers may deem your green card to be abandoned. So if there is an absence or you plan on being outside of the United States for an extended period of time, I think a lot of US practitioners like to recommend that you get a re entry permit so that you cannot disrupt that time. You can get back into the United States anyway and you'll have to provide a reason for why you're being outside the US for that long. But for your naturalization application, if you are outside of the United States for more than six months at any given time, that will unfortunately disrupt that five year period analysis, although it just pushes it back so naturalization you just want to make sure that you meet some presence requirements. Okay. Thank you. Sang So Amber, there you have your answer. And for everybody watching, as many people know, I was an immigrant myself. I came to the United States this year. It will be 22 years on the 4 July Independence Day. We thought that was very significant. And getting your naturalization and getting your citizenship. Oh my gosh. It's just the best. So that's something that we want for everybody who's watching and really wants to live the American dream. Adina is saying, oh, it's so informative. Thank you. You're welcome. Adena Kim Pelio I hope I've got that right. Is asking what are the implications of being pregnant when you just arrive in the United States? Because it's not really an immigration question, but do you want to maybe answer that one? Well, I've never been pregnant, Tanya, so I'm not sure I'm confident to ask. I don't think you're going to be Chris. It seems unlikely at this point. So the real answer is nothing from an immigration perspective, I would imagine quite a bit of changes from a life perspective, but there's really no difference there. I think it's probably reasonable for you to keep your employer engaged in this, that they can help you work the US system, which has different insurance rules than most other countries in the world, probably all other countries. And you want to make sure that your health care insurance is taken care of here in the United States. They can get quality care. But from an immigration perspective, there's really nothing to be concerned about. And your baby presuming they're born here in the United States. They will be a US citizen from the moment they arrive. Okay. Congratulations. So there we go. Campbello. Congratulations. And the one thing that I would just add to Chris's answer is if you find yourself in that situation because obviously life continues when you are waiting for a green card and it is a long time period, please consult with your recruitment company and make sure that they understand the details of exactly what your situation is, what your plan is going to be so that they can help. As Chris said, there are lots of implications. It might not be from an immigration perspective, but from your employer's perspective, from a health insurance perspective, very important to have that consultation. Venkatesh, we already did answer the question about the Indian nurses. Byron is tagging his friend Dan. Thank you, Byron, for doing that. Please, everybody, tag your friends and colleagues. And it's your way of paying it forward in the same way that it is the panel's way of paying it forward to you by giving you this time of their expertise and help and guidance on the US immigration system.

Chester is asking, well, this is an IRS question. Will the IRS run after my properties owned from country of origin after becoming an American citizen, Mike? Well, once you become an American citizen or even a green card holder, you are taxed on worldwide income. So if your properties overseas are generating income, then, yes, you would be taxed on those. But as far as them running after them, I guess in any scenario where they're going to put a lien on any properties you have, it would also depend on the treaty of the country where they're in as to whether they could actually get those properties. Right now, we're all seeing around the world how quickly you can lose a big yacht. So if that's your question, then I think fairly quickly. Okay. Thank you, Mike. You host an event on your big yacht for follow up for this next thing. Yeah. Now that's true. Okay. So moving on. I'm just watching the clock as we speak.

Donna is asking I think we've kind of touched on this question, but saying maybe you want to just clarify a little bit more for Donna. Donna is asking how long is the processing from I-140 to ID? Saying processing from ID, maybe I'm not familiar with that, Christina. The ID is maybe IV. Yeah, we did touch on this. So I think, as you see, the theme here is that and Tanya mentioned this earlier, I-140 is in this two step process, the quickest part. Right. Because we can premium process it and we get it relatively quickly depending on what country you're processing your immigrant visa or IV. It really depends. Right. But I think about eight to ten months if it's outside of the Philippines, as Mike mentioned earlier. I think it's a great estimate, but it's just the wait time at each embassy or consulate to get that immigrant visa appointment. And once you have that appointment. Right. It takes, depending on the concept, a couple of I think a week, maybe five to seven days to get the actual immigrant visa in your passport. And then at that point, you're good to go and come into the United States within six months. So I don't know if that answers it, but unfortunately, it depends. But if we have to put a time frame, I like Mike's answer earlier, about eight to ten months. Okay. Thank you. Sang, we have a question from Venkatesh. At present, I'm working in the US on an H1 visa as a registered nurse. My I-140 was approved and prioritized 2018. Any update for Indian nurse in that kind of situation, Chris? Yeah. Unfortunately, barring a legislative change, you're probably still looking at five, six, seven years before you're going to get your green card. Unfortunately, I can't sugarcoat it or tell it any different than that. So you'll need to keep maintaining that H 1D. Okay. Thank you for that.

Elizabeth is asking, can an internationally trained midwife apply for a nurse aid position? Mike, as long as they meet the licensing requirements in the state that they're going to be placed in? Sure. And then they would go through the process just like any other CNA or any other NA type position would. So. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Mike, Nazarene has a question. What about MLS medical lab scientists? We are feeling jealous from the nurse. Well, Nazarene, we don't want you to feel jealous saying, can you talk a little bit about medical lab scientists or medical lab technicians and how the immigration would work? Yeah, I think Chris touched on this earlier in terms of the process, and we kind of talked about it. It would just add a couple of six to nine months on top of what a normal process would be for a nurse. So again, go through that labor certification process, the hospital will probably have to recruit and then, yeah, it's just the same green card or the end goal is the same, but you would just have to add additional time. Okay. Thank you. Sang. At five minutes to go. And there are a lot of questions here. Some of them are repeat questions. So if you ask a question and we are not getting to it, I apologize. It probably means that we've already covered that question. So please go back and watch the rerun of the show. So let's just see here. What have I missed? Okay, so we have a question here from Emmanuel. Sorry I came late. That's okay, Emmanuel. I passed the NCLEX and IELTS. What's the realistic timeline? Emmanuel, we did cover this question. If you have not already applied to the Connetics USA website, please do. So we have employers interviewing hundreds of nurses. We've got a large employer interviewing right now as we speak, and every week, lots of recruitment events. So please make sure to apply to us and we'd be happy to help you.

Let's see, here's one Kenneth is asking, is it possible to do a visa adjustment from a J one visa to an immigrant visa. What are the implications? I think it was Chris. Yeah. It's very possible. The number one thing that jumps out as me is you will want to make sure that you're not subject to the two year home residency requirement, which is usually you're usually able to determine that off your DS 2019 form on the bottom left sometimes in the visa. And the passport itself will also have a notation that tells you if you are subject to it. This is one definitely, though, if you talk to any sort of immigration Attorney's got any sort of experience in this area, they should be able to help you out with that until you pretty quickly, either you're fine to be adjusted or you're not. Okay. So there you go, Kenneth.

And Delvey is asking I would like to ask if a CNA can also provide green card for your old daughter as well as her husband, although I'm an RN, but unlicensed RN USA right now. Mike. Sure. The fact that you're coming in as a CNA, you still get the exact same as Chris mentioned earlier, all the green cards are the same. your dependent four year old daughter and a spouse would clearly get green cards at the same time as you. You could come in as a CNA and then ultimately, if you pass your NCLEX while you're here, you could get promoted at your facility or anyplace else into an RN position. So I think that's a fairly common path for a lot of people. Absolutely. Okay. I think one last question here from Nd. So I think we've covered this. But just to clarify, for Nd, how long is it taking for the hospitals to get the prevailing wage determination nowadays? Bang. Yeah. Prevailing wage determination, they vary. I've seen as early as three months, but these days I've actually seen a little bit longer, probably about closer to five months. I don't know if Mike, Chris, you guys are seeing differently, but generally anywhere from that three to five month period. Okay. Yeah. I think that's what we are seeing across the board as well. Okay. Well, we are at the hour. Everybody, thank you so much for all your questions. Thank you to our expert legal panel for your time. We know how busy you are and we really appreciate you paying it forward for health care workers, not just nurses, as Nazarene said, allied medical technologists, nurses', et cetera, that have got a lot of burning questions about immigration. And hopefully we were able to answer as many of your questions as possible. Every month onwards and upwards, we have our expert, loyal panel come in, and we're really grateful for their expertise and their time. So thank you, everybody, for joining us. Before we finish off, I just wanted to share the upcoming shows that we have next week that we have on the 15th and a forward talk show talking about the first 30 days in the United States and what that's like. On the 18th, we have how to buy a house in the United States. On the 25th, we are showcasing one of the Connectics employers, Ocshner a fabulous system in Louisiana. On the first, we have a Connetics topic on the NCLEX. On the 8th, again, our expert legal panel will be back to address more of your questions and answers about immigration. On the 15th, we have our state side segment where we are going to be covering what it's like to live and work in Maryland, which will be really interesting. On the 19th, we'll be talking about selfcare during the pandemic. And then on the 22nd, another client showcased Penn State, one of our prestigious employers in Pennsylvania. Those are upcoming shows. And last but not least, we have our Connetics initiative. So please, everybody remember we have a free aisle scholarship for all nurses that are placed through Connetics USA. In fact, one of the listeners at the beginning of the show was Bert. Bert, I'm sure he wouldn't mind me telling you he failed the aisle seven times, came to Kinetics, did our course and he is a true superstar. He passed with an eight in speaking and a seven overall, which is a higher requirement. So we've had enormous success with that. We have an NCLEX scholarship, a free review course for selected nurses, $1,000 referral fee. It's a great referral fee, a great way to pay it forward for nurses with Inflex and this has been extended to May 1. Please watch our podcast. We're in the top 10% of podcasts in the United States. We have our nurse aid program which we've spoken about our weekly show Onwards and Upwards and then Nazareen, we don't want you to feel jealous of the nurses. We have an allied division where we're placing all different kinds of allied positions, so we'd love you to apply and we'd be happy to help you. And finally, our winner of the NCLEX Raffle is Harold Bricks honori. So Congratulations to Harold Connetics will be covering the cost of your NCLEX exam as well as your NCLEX course, so that is certainly a day to celebrate. With that said, thank you, everybody for joining us. The expert panel will be back next month and as we say, onwards and upwards. Thank you. Bye.